James thrilled with win

The all-rounder produced a stunning spell of bowling on Saturday, claiming four of the opening five Beechgrove side’s batsmen.

But McBrine, although happy to collect the man of the match award, said he felt the all-round team display is what clinched them the trophy, late on Monday evening at Bready.

“It was another great achievement for the team and we played really well,” insisted McBrine.

“Brigade gave us a tough match and Johnny Thompson bowled brilliantly on Monday night against us, but the old guy (Junior McBrine) and one of the young guys (Gary McClintock) pulled us through for a good and deserved victory.

“It was a good achievement for myself personally but we also won it for the two lads (Ryan Hunter and Andrew McBrine) who are away in Australia and they’ll be happy as well whenever they find out that we have won.”

James also praised teenagers William McBrine, Gary and William McClintock, who were playing in their first North West Senior Cup final and he’s confident the future is bright for the Holm men.

“We keep bringing the young boys through and hopefully the future will be good for our club and hopefully those three 15-year-olds will have many more Senior Cup Final successes.

“There was no nerves from any of the young boys who were playing in their first Senior Cup finals and that was great.”

One of those youngsters James was talking about admitted he was nervous as the realisation of winning his first Senior Cup medal was getting closer and closer.

“It might have looked like I wasn’t nervous, but I was because Johnny was bowling well,” conceded Gary.

“I just went in and at the time Johnny was bowling superbly, but I knew he only had four or five overs left, so I decided to just try and see him off.

“To be honest Junior (McBrine) kept me right and he kept talking to me whenever I was in the middle, he kept saying ‘play him off’ until his overs were up and then Iftikhar (Hussain) came on and again Junior told me to just ‘play him off’ and thankfully it worked out.”

With wickets tumbling young Gary came to the crease with Donemana 57 for 5, however he just remained focused on the task in hand and made sure that his brother William didn’t need to come to the middle.

“I just thought to myself to keep my head down and bat well, to be honest that is all you can do in those types of situations; William didn’t get the chance to bat in the final, so I beat him in this one,” joked Gary.