Pictured: The Home & Away All Stars collect the cheque and winners trophy. (From left) Ricky Jones, Mike McGlinchey, Todd McSweeney, Rory McSweeney and James Edser.
By Tim O?Connell
Petone can rightly claim to being the backyard cricket capital of New Zealand, after five of its own took out the national BYC championships in their first attempt. The team, known as the ?Home and Away All Stars? in honour of their favourite TV drama, overcame tiredness and sixty other teams to win the L&P backyard cricket championships in Paeroa on March 7- 8. The team have all played regular cricket but the only proper training before the tournament was regular games of the backyard variety at friends? flats. In the true die hard spirit of Kiwi amateur sport, the team travelled through the night to arrive in Paeroa just hours before the first of their eight matches. ?We left here at about seven on Friday night after everyone finished work, and drove straight up,? says ecstatic team spokesman Rory McSweeney. ?We didn?t get up there until four in the morning and just managed to sneak in a couple of hours sleep before the first match-motivation was pretty low on the Saturday morning.? The lousy pre match routine failed to derail the teams resolve, as they easily moved through the round robin matches, played in actual backyards of Paeroa residents, before knocking out the reigning champions from Auckland in the semi-final. ?They were an extremely well organised outfit-it was good to knock them out,? said McSweeney. From there the Home and Away All Stars easily won the final at Paeroa?s Centennial Park, beating a team from Cambridge by 52 runs to 33. McSweeney says the event was great to be a part of, with most teams maintaining the social spirit of the tournament. ?Most of the guys there were sweet, although in the knock out games things got a bit heated.? Aside from a cheque for $3000, prizes for winning the tournament included a year?s supply of L&P and barbeque. While impressed with six burner barbeque, McSweeney says the logistics of sharing what he terms ?a big all in one kitchen? with the rest of the team to be too difficult. ?It?s a great prize, but we?ll probably end up putting it on Trade Me,? he says.
