Brierly - Christ Church coach Lachi Rooke praises team for win against Merrivale

The Bulls claimed a 41-run victory over the Tigers on Saturday - their first win from five games this campaign.

"First win of the season's always good and (I'm) just really proud of how the boys conducted themselves and played the game," Rooke said.

"Credit to Merrivale, they're a great outfit. They've got some really good young guys and some great experienced blokes.

"They've got a really good mix so we're really pleased to come away with a win like that and it gives us a bit of belief as well and says we can match it."

Recruit Damon Cooper led the way with the bat for the Bulls, notching his first half-century for his new club.

Alongside the former Creeker, skipper Mark Murphy (33) and youngster Will Colla (20) made useful contributions to help the Bulls reach 151 from 45 overs.

Tiger's bowler Hugh Fleming was lethal, snaring 4-20 and ensuring the Bulls didn't reach a much larger total.

With ball-in-hand there were six individual wicket-takers for the Bulls as the Tigers fell for 110.

Rooke commended his entire playing group for its performance.

"(Damon Cooper) he's had a bit of hard luck and hasn't put a score on the board until today, so to see Coops do that was awesome," he said.

"Will Colla's come back from an injury, he contributed.

"And then everyone with the ball, it was a complete performance in terms of full-team performance. Everyone stood up and contributed at a different moment which is all you can ask for."

"To get a bit of a reward is nice."

Looking forward, the Bulls mentor wants to see more runs scored from his middle-to-lower order batters.

The side was 3-113 at one stage before losing seven wickets for 38 runs.

"We were lucky probably in the sense we were fortunate that our guys up the top of the order did the hard yards and put together a good base," he said.

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