Someone grab me 10cc and dust off a bass guitar because this week we don't just like cricket, oh no, we love it.
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Cricket in the Central West is going back to the future with the return of the Bathurst-Orange Inter-District Cricket (BOIDC) competition for next summer.
It's been 12 years since the two Western Zone goliaths ended what was a long-running, combined title race at the completion of 2006-07, with Cavaliers taking the silverware that summer, as they did many times before that as well.
The BOIDC's return is a welcome one over a decade on, but better late than never.
Orange District Cricket Association clubs Orange City, Cavaliers, Kinross, Centrals and CYMS will nominate a team and they'll form a nine-side competition with Bathurst City, City Colts, St Pat's Old Boys and Rugby Union, the four Bathurst District Cricket Association outfits backing the return of the concept as well.
It's the jolt cricket in this area has needed for a long time.
No one likes playing in a competition that has five sides and for the bulk of the 12 years since the BOIDC's initial split that has been the case in Orange, while in 2018-19 five teams contested the Bathurst first grade season, too.
Five team competitions become a chore. So much so, a lot of players were preferring to stay at home on a Saturday and do, dare we say it, chores.
But the re-introduction of the combined first grade premiership will surely revitalise clubs in both centres and help boost the level of cricket across the board.
Which will only serve as a good thing come representative time when Orange and Bathurst sides take on zone rivals Dubbo, an association that now must be looking over to the east with a touch of envy.
So, what can we expect from the new BOIDC?
As they did way back in the early 1990s, Orange City's a massive chance of winning the first combined premiership in the format's return next summer.
- WESTERN CLUSTER PHOTOS: All the action from the Group 10 and Group 11 derbies
- BOIDC IS BACK: Bathurst-Orange Inter-District Cricket's return locked in for 2019-20 summer
- STATE OF ORIGIN: James Maloney and Jack Wighton both named for State of Origin game two
Ed Morrish's bottle greens have won the last two ODCA titles, in fact, and the club hasn't won three first grade titles of any description in succession since the 1970s.
While you have to think if St Pat's can maintain their young core then a return to the 1995-96 glory days aren't out of the realm of possibility for the Bathurst club.
We may even see more teams go calypso and celebrate with the double high-five - we don't like that, oh no, we love it.
GROUP 10 'REPLACEMENTS' USE MILES AND MILES OF HEART TO TRUMP GROUP 11 ON THE ROAD
Has anyone ever seen Graeme Osborne and Jimmy McGinty, Gene Hackman's character in turn-of-the-millennium classic The Replacements, in the same room?
No, me either.
That's because they're dead-set the same person.
Osborne's ability to get the best out of a Group 10 squad that had a whopping nine changes from the 17 originally named was monumental at Forbes on Saturday, the blues winning 22-14 over Western rivals Group 11 in the process.
Never mind Group 10 rocked up to Forbes with 15 men, then pull Lithgow Workies centre Keelan Bresac out of the crowd to make it 16 - still one short of a full compliment - then found themselves down 8-0 mid-way through the first half as the hosts skipped out to an early lead on the back of two tries.
The major factor? Let's use a line from McGinty: "Heart. Miles and miles of heart".
Group 10 skipper Greg Behan called it his side's will to win while Osborne said similar as the pair celebrated a memorable victory, replacement halfback Matt Ranse starring as Group 10 scored four of the game's last five tries to secure back-to-back Western Rams titles.
It must have been tough for the Group 11 boys to watch.
After a loss in Bathurst in 2018, bringing the annual representative fixture back to Forbes was supposed to help lift Group 11 and get them back to the top of Western - where they sat following three-straight wins over Group 10 in 2015-16-17.
Maybe next year.
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