Sports reports: Cricket teams will battle for mateship trophy

This story includes contributions from Joe Di Santo, Derek Vanderzon, Michael Potts and Rebecca Hay. Email your sports reports to liana@murraybridge.news.

It's Remembrance Round this week in the Murray Towns Cricket Association, and Wanderers will host Mannum in the A grade at Murray Bridge Showground.

In what is unofficially being dubbed the Battle of the Green and Gold, both clubs will be competing for the annual Remembrance Day Mateship Perpetual Trophy.

Wanderers will be looking to retain the trophy for the fourth year in a row, while Mannum will be looking to ambush the Wanderers' hopes of retention by becoming the first away club in the MTCA to hold the trophy.

Both clubs are showing some great form early in the season, so this game has the potential to be a cracker.

The Kookaburras have had a solid start to their season with some brilliant individual performances from the the likes of Zak Muirhead, Max Loller, Jayden Krolling, and Blake Weber.

Not to be outdone, the Woo Hoos will be looking to steady the ship and will be relying on the inform trio of Ben Trenorden, Jake Rogers and last year’s Di Santo Medallion recipient Cam Cox.

The annual match is in its fourth year.

The Wanderers Cricket Club host the Mateship Match on the nearest Saturday before or on Remembrance Day.

Each year, Wanderers Cricket Club will host a different club within the MTCA, giving an opportunity for all clubs within the association to participate.

The origins of this game date back to 2016, when the Murray Bridge RSL used to host the Anzac Sports Carnivale, coordinated by former Wanderers player Joseph Di Santo.

The MTCA used to participate in an intermingled under 14 and 16s T20 game in the lead-up to Anzac Day.

This used to raise funds for the Murray Bridge RSL’s projects and raised awareness of our military history and local sporting service personnel.

Since 2021, the Wanderers Cricket Club and the Di Santo family have collaborated each year to honour and acknowledge all the volunteers that work tirelessly for their Clubs as well as all veterans.

In particular, Wanderers acknowledge their veterans who have played for their club since being established over 50 years ago.

These include the club’s inaugural president, Lionel Norton; Vietnam
veterans Peter Tuxford and Gary Daniel; as well as current serving veterans Ben Bittner, and Charles and Joseph Di Santo, just to name a few.

The player that is deemed man of the match will be awarded the Di Santo Medallion.

The medallion is named after the Di Santo family for their contribution to the Australian Defence Force and the game of cricket in the local area.

The Di Santo Medallion is judged on the old Australian Army values of courage, initiative, leadership, and teamwork.

The medallion doesn’t necessarily go the player that scores the most runs, takes the most wickets or takes the most catches.

It can be awarded to a player that does something inspirational, such as taking an important catch at the critical point in the game, a player that takes a few quick wickets to swing the momentum of the game in their team’s favour, or even a player that has fielded well, saving boundaries to help keep the score down.

The umpires, the Di Santo family and both team captains pick their best three players from each team, the votes are tallied up and the recipient is then decided.

Both Wanderers and Mannum cricket clubs are calling out to all past players and the wider community to get down to the showgrounds.

Proceedings will get underway at 12.30pm with a brief ceremony.

Play will start immediately afterwards, followed by the presentation, in the
clubrooms at the end of the game.

Wanderers are then hosting a quiz night to take the night out and welcome everyone to come along and enjoy a fun night.

Karoonda are out front in Lower Murray bowls

Karoonda are already opening up a gap on Lower Murray bowls competition after four rounds, downing Jervois on all rinks in blustery conditions at Karoonda by 28 shots.

Josh Porker, Malcolm Waechter, Erin O'Malley and John Wegner were the biggest winners with a 29-13 win over Shawn Hicks, Graham Fromm, Bruce Smith and Grace Hameister.

A four to Hicks on the ninth end had Jervois leading 9-6, but things quickly fell apart after that as Porker added six, two, two and three in succession to go 10 ahead after 13 ends.

A four on the 18^th blew the margin out further as Porker eased to a 16-shot win.

Rowan Zadow, Gary Zadow, Ivan Silcock and Jayden Turner opened with a four against Graeme Herbert, Tim Hicks, Jeremy Scannell and Neil Morris.

This had Jervois playing catch up for the rest of the day.

Herbert managed to draw level after seven ends, and was well in contention with two ends remaining, trailing by just two shots.

But a four to Zadow followed by a single closed out the win.

Ian Symonds, Garry Mason, Malcolm McKenzie and Bill Cornish ran out 27-22 winners over Kevin Spinks, Graham Schenke, Denis Hicks and Shane Fromm with the visitors suffering the ignominy of dropping an eight on the second end.

They did however recover from trailing by 11 shots after seven ends, outscoring the home side 16-10 over the remainder of the contest.

Murray Bridge have gone from winless to second in two weeks after an away win against Mannum with a 10-shot win, two rinks up.

Bruce Attrill, Andrew Meddle, Bob Johnston and Brian Leckie led the way with a 26-18  win over David Kempe, Graham Leathers, Peter Wegner and Rosemary Freeman.

A seven on the ninth end gave Attrill a nine-shot break, but Kempe took the next five ends and with a four tied the score at 14 apiece after 14 ends.

Attrill responded with three twos and a brace of threes to race out to an 11 shot lead.

A three to Kempe on the final end reduced the final margin to eight shots.

Darren McIntosh, Tony Trewren, Charlie DiSanto and Paul Smart continued their unbeaten run with a 24-17 win over Gavin Pfeiffer, Tom Towns, Steve Gregory and Ainsley Roberts.

McIntosh had the advantage throughout, but could not shake off Pfeiffer until the last two ends, with a single followed by a four belying the closeness of the contest.

Terry McDonnell, Lynton Jones, Tony Gill and Ron Van Tijn prevented the clean sweep with a hard-fought 21-16 win over Ben Traeger, Helen Lindner, Brian Traeger and Gerry Penta.

Traeger had edged ahead on two occasions, but McDonnell seized control over the last five ends to turn a two shot deficit into a five-shot win.

RSL comprehensively defeated Tailem Bend at Tailem 73-43 with two rinks up.

Noel Kneebone, Bob Solley, Matthew Wynne and David Newell did most of the damage with a 32-9 win over Michael Thorne, Steven Gordge, Stuart Rooke and Con Jones.

Karen Kneebone, Sam Mammone, Allan Wooldridge and Ann-Marie Kuchel won 24-13 overt Rob Hales, Ian Shepherd, Chris Slattery and Colin Baxter.

Once again it was Travis Schenke, Merv Stevens, Kevin McDonald and Grantley Byrne who salvaged points for the home side with a 21-17 win over Jason Sipos, David Thiele, Kerri Bolt and Garry Daniel.

Murray Bridge rowers represent at their annual regatta

On Saturday, the Murray Bridge Rowing Club hosted its annual rowing regatta.

Teams from all across the state came to compete including Unley High, St Peters College, Adelaide High, Riverside and many more.

Coach Peter Newell said that, apart from the wind, it was a good day on the river. 

“There was a pretty good turnout … (but) we finished short because umpires decided it was too windy in the afternoon,” he said.

Murray Bridge Rowing Club took out first place in six grades:

• Women's double scull
• Women's coxed quad scull
• Third grade men's coxed quad scull
• Third grade men's double scull
• Women's single scull
• Masters mixed quad scull

The women's novice quad scull came second by 0.9 of a second, Mr Newell said.

The club also celebrated 100 years since the Murray Cods completed in the Olympic games with a three mile eight race, in which they finished fourth place.

In honour of the centenary, the makers of the documentary Paris or the Bush: the Story of the Cods, Wayne Groom and Carolyn Bilsborow, made an appearance.

"We named new single scull Paris or the Bush ... which they christened," Mr Newell said.

"We had all kinds of cups and other memorabilia on display."

The club will continue the centenary celebrations with a cabaret on Saturday November 23.

The night will feature live music, bar facilities and supper provided; tickets are $30 at events.humanitix.com.

Steady as she goes, Eddy Edwards     

Rock solid former Murray Bridge Golf Club champion Anthony Edwards, known as "Steady Eddy" because of his consistency, lived right up to his name on Saturday.

He won the a stroke competition with a pretty handy nett 65 in the blustery conditions.

Quite unfazed on course, his cool temperament goes a long way toward keeping his mind on the job and punching out yet another par or birdie.

Edging back towards his true handicap, Steady will be a real handful come club championships next year.         

Not much else to report on a fairly quiet day of golfing stuff ups but it was nice to see former member Craig Hogben return and put in a fine round to feature in the prize list.

Brett Altschwager, Rod Thoman and Tom Haig also continued their good form with more strong rounds.

Murraylands homeschool group host successful sports day

The local Murraylands homeschool group ran its third annual sports day event on Sunday with 55 kids in attendance.

The group collaborated with Little Athletics to run the day and this was their biggest turnout yet.

The kids were divided into two teams, red and blue, and competed in a number of standard sports day individual and team events.

Medals for a male and female best and fairest were given out and other top athletic achievers.

And of course a trophy for the winning team – this year the red team stopped blue's two-year winning streak and claimed victory of the trophy.

The trophy and team picture will be on display at the Murray Bridge Library throughout the year to give families an opportunity to visit.