New Farnley defeat Woodlands in Heavy Woollen Cup final

After matching Heckmondwike’s achievement (1936-38) of winning the Solly Sports Heavy Woollen Cup for three successive years, the Leeds-based club have set their sights on emulating Wrenthorpe, who won the sport’s oldest knockout competition four years in a row (2007-10).

New Farnley skipper Lee Goddard admitted about the four-timer after their one-sided win over Woodlands at Methley, saying: “Absolutely that is our aim, but I am just disappointed in the way that we lost the Priestley Cup as it would have been nice to go back-to-back-to back in both trophies, but it is nothing less than we deserve.”

Woodlands won the toss and batted, but a combination of tight bowling and loose shots meant that the innings was soon in disarray.

Dogged opener Liam Collins (Sam Frankland was missing) and Muhammad Bilal were joint top scorers with 19, and keeper Greg Finn (13) and Scott Richardson (14) also made double figures on a day when Woodlands were again below par.

Brad Schmulian lobbed a ball into the infield, while there were some others who played at deliveries that they could have left alone and edged to the keeper or slips, where Alex Lilley took an outstanding catch.

“It could not really have gone any better,” admitted Goddard of what happened before tea, when Dan Houghton wrapped the innings up with 4-24.

“If you lose the toss and field first on a day when ideally you would have won the toss and batted, to bowl them out for 84 is unheard of really.

“It was a combination of good bowling and loose shots, but we bowled really, really well, although they didn’t make us work hard for their wickets.

“But credit to us for bowling a really good disciplined opening spell of 15-16 overs (Alex Lilley 2-18, man-of-the-match Usman Arshad 3-23). We didn’t let them off the hook, didn’t let them get going, but they will be the first to say that they probably helped us as well.”

New Farnley skipper Lee Goddard lifts the Heavy Woollen Cup (Image: Submitted)

Although Mark Lawson and the in-form Steve Bullen were dismissed for a combined total of 13 runs, there were no alarms as opener Aidan Langley (34no) and all-rounder Harry Killoran (11no) saw New Farnley home after Goddard had made 22.

The latter added: “We decided to put Mark Lawson as an opener to try and get us off to a good start, which also lengthened our batting line-up as I dropped down to four and Harry to five, which worked in or favour, and there was never any panic.”

As for whether it was a good time to play Woodlands bearing in mind their crippling schedule, Goddard said: “I could understand it if they were mentally and physically tired, but I am not in their dressing room.

“However, results on a Sunday would probably suggest that, but I am not going to discredit our boys from a fantastic performance.

“If you look at last year’s league finish, we probably suffered on a Saturday rather than a Sunday, and we ran out of steam.

“When we played Woodlands in the league, we didn’t have a fit team on the pitch, and they may be running out of steam on a Sunday whereas we did it on the Saturday last year.

“We are semi-professional players who work during the week, and it is tough as they have played a hell of a lot of Sundays, but credit to them for getting to the latter stages of every competition.”

Fixtures invariably conflict in a wet summer, and Goddard confessed: “It is a shame that we reached the Bradford League T20 semi-finals on the same day as the Heavy Woollen Cup semi-finals, so we couldn’t represent ourselves as we would have liked to (they sent their second XI to the T20), and then we lost to Woodlands in a bowl-out in the Priestley Cup, which was also really disappointing, but I am still chuffed for the boys and the club that we have picked up a trophy this year.

“We have fallen short in the league and we need to address that, but credit to Woodlands that they will get over the line for a fourth successive year, but we are certainly a force to be reckoned with on a Sunday.”