Andy thrilled after victory

The talented left-handed batsman, scored 86 runs in his two innings and also took three wickets throughout the game, but it was his impressive 55 not out in the second innings, which helped him collect the accolade.

“It’s nice to get the man of the match award, but the main thing is the team winning,” he admitted.

“It was a good win after being 70 odd runs down after the first innings, we fought very hard. We bowled well, fielded well, took our catches and it was a good performance.”

The North West Warriors man also had a special moment when he, along with his father Junior, were both at the wicket when the Holm men secured the win.

“It was nice to carry my bat and see the team home,” he added.

“The two lads did well at the top of the order, which got us off to a decent start, and young (Gary) McClintock also batted really well. Me and him set the platform for the likes of Ricky Lee (Dougherty) and my dad came in and finished it off.”

Trailing by 72 runs after the first innings, a lot of people were backing Brigade to claim the trophy, but that never-say die attitude from Richard Kee’s side is what shone through in the end.

“The way we see things is that we have a good fighting spirit in the team and we never know when we are beat, which is a good thing.

“But once we were 70 odd runs behind, we really did have to bowl them out for a low total, if we wanted to have any chance of winning and thank god we did.”

McBrine also felt the biggest moment in the two-day final at Eglinton was his uncle James’ wonderful catch, which ended Andy Britton’s fantastic batting spell in Brigade’s second innings, and the Ireland U19 international is looking for another big two days against the Beechgrove side this weekend.

“It was a brilliant catch, a man of 50-years-old diving at full stretch was great, it changed the game as Andy (Britton) was going very well at that time.

“Catches win matches, and that catch just changed the game completely. It saved us maybe having to chase another 30 or 40 runs more, because as I have said Andy was batting really well , he was just into the sixties and he was just starting to strike the ball cleanly.

“We are four points behind Coleraine, if we can get two wins this weekend – hopefully beating Brigade twice – it would put us really back in the mix and we have Coleraine to play at our place, so you never know.”