North Albury survive Tallangatta fightback to post their first win of the season

The Hoppers, defending 190, knocked over four of the visitors' top five for a combined 10 runs with only John Oswell (52) offering any resistance.

But a brilliant knock from Nathan Thompson, who was playing his first game in five years, gave Tallangatta hope.

Thompson, who played in the Bushies' 2015 premiership, carved 75 off 77 balls including two sixes - one landing in Alemein Avenue - and seven fours as what appeared at one stage to be an insurmountable run-chase went down to the wire.

Tallangatta, having taken 13 runs from the 46^th over, looked favourites at 8/173 but when Thompson finally fell, lbw to Jake Burge, he was quickly followed by Sam Stephens leaving Fraser Bremner stranded on 10 not out from 52 balls and the Bushies all out for 174.

Having tasted defeat by one run in their first game of the season, North Albury's narrow win left new captain Ben Fulford conflicted.

"It's a tough one," he said.

"We were sitting pretty comfortable at 3/160 and should have cashed in and made well over 250.

"We're a little bit disappointed that we're not batting to a plan.

"It's a few little things, one-percenters.

"They shouldn't even have got close to 190 when we had their best bats out in those first few overs.

"It's mixed feelings.

"We're happy to get the first win out of the way but it would definitely have been good if a few boys had carried on, myself included, and made a bigger score."

Tim Hartshorn (56) has begun his season with back-to-back fifties while Callum Langlands (23), Matt Condon (30) and Jesse Griffiths (29) all got starts without going to make it big.

It was a similar story with the ball, North Albury taking control at 5/67 before the Bushies clawed their way back into the contest.

"We started well, we squeezed and bowled to a plan but through the middle, we slacked off a little bit," Fulford said.

"We can't have those ebbs and flows coming at crucial times like they did today.

"But I back our boys to execute and that's exactly what we did.

"We dropped six catches so we had to take 16 wickets, not 10.

"That makes it a little bit hard but the boys did well and I was comfortable knowing we had good plans which we could execute when we needed to."

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The Hoppers' next three games are against New City, Baranduda and Belvoir.

"I don't want to see any complacency," Fulford said.

"There's a fine line between acting like a good team and knowing you're a good team.

"We have flirted with that in the past so we need to humble ourselves.

"That probably wasn't the strongest bowling line-up in the comp but they still bowled us out so we need to take a little bite of humble pie and absorb through the middle."

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