Extreme heat forces North Geelong, St Joseph’s A-grade women’s grand final to be abandoned

North Geelong has been awarded the Barwon Women’s Cricket’s A-grade premiership after Sunday’s extreme heat forecast saw its grand final against St Joseph’s abandoned.

The A-grade decider, set to be a rematch of last year’s grand final, was called off Sunday morning with temperatures set to hit 39 degrees by early afternoon, while Barrabool and Geelong City Sharks’ B-grade showdown was also nixed.

Without a reserve day in place, the grand finals won’t be rescheduled, with the competition deferring to Geelong Cricket Association men’s rules which state the higher ranked teams will be awarded the premiership — in this case North Geelong in A-grade and Barrabool in the B-grade.

St Joseph’s A-grade women’s coach Louise Brown, who led the team to last year’s premiership, said it was a “shattering way” to end the season but acknowledged it was “unfortunately the rules”.

She understood challenges with light and ground availability but felt there was room to reschedule the grand final, adding “to not have back-up for A-grade for a grand final is a bit of a joke”.

“To not even have a reserve day set aside or even consideration of shifting the time of the game is disappointing. it feels amatuer hour-ish,” Brown said.

“We had an unbelievable performance last week to knock off top-of-the-table in East Belmont, so to not then have the opportunity to back that up and prove we were deserving of back-to-back premierships, it’s disappointing and still pretty raw.”

North Geelong women’s cricket director Jeff Czajkowski said his club had tried to put forward various solutions to have the grand final played, including lifting the heat threshold to 40 degrees, as is with men’s regulations, considering there was two umpires.

“It is a different feeling, there is obviously rules in place around weather and this has just happened at the wrong time, we would have loved to play a grand final,” he said.

However Czajkowski said the Magpies would accept the premiership, noting their strong run to second place.

“We are feeling quite worthy as premiers, we won the last six games in a row, we beat St Joseph’s a fortnight ago and also had to win a semi-final on the weekend to get ourselves in this position,” he said.

“We’re very confident our cricket was the best in the competition.”

Competition chair Lisa Armstrong-Rowe understood it was a disappointing result for both the competition and teams involved but said player safety needed to be prioritised.

“All the work people have done throughout the season, both the four teams, East (Belmont) for hosting... very disappointing for everyone,” Armstrong-Rowe said.

“But the heat is the heat, it’s the one thing we have no control over, the weather.

“For both teams, they’d prefer to play the game and win the grand final but there has to be an advantage too for finishing higher on the ladder.”

Armstrong-Rowe said there had been conversations throughout the week about moving the grand final start times on Sunday, however fading light and high temperatures continuing until 5pm proved barriers.

She said the developing nature of the women’s competition — which is in its fifth year — meant there was no reserve day in place to reschedule the grand final, while future ground availability due to other cricket finals also made it difficult to lock in another date within the next week.

“That may well be something after this year we look (at)... maybe plan a reserve day in the future,” she said.

“Every year we learn, we started off with two pages of rules, and each year we have to add this in or think about that... we add elements to our playing conditions and rules. “It’s an evolving and developing competition.”

The decision to abandon Sunday’s grand finals was met with early mixed reactions on social media.

“There’s a whole free morning TOMORROW as well! Ridiculous decision and so disappointing for the teams involved,” Carolyn Friend said.

Jess Kimberley agreed, calling it was “an appalling decision”.

“BWCC could have started at 9am or delayed the game till later in the evening for a twilight game. On a GF game also…” they wrote.

Sandra Walker backed the decision, calling it a “sensible move keeping the girls safe”, while Mark Tilders hoped the competition would advocate for a reserve day in the future, but conceded “rules are rules” in the meantime and “GF’s have been decided in this way on many occasions”.

Brown, who was set to coach her final game at St Joseph’s on Sunday after making the decision at the start of the season to step back, said her team would try to look at the positives of the season despite the call.

“We finished the season really well, our last performance was fantastic, there are certainly positives with how our season progressed” she said.

The women’s competition follows both the Geelong Cricket Association and Bellarine Peninsula Cricket Association in abandoning games over the long weekend due to the extreme heat, though it wasn’t just sport to fall victim to the weather, with the three-day Bellarine Agricultural Show as well as the famous Moomba Parade in Melbourne also cancelled.

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Barwon Women’s Cricket’s junior girls grand finals were able to go ahead in Sunday morning, with temperatures not yet reaching 38 degrees.

The women’s competition will host its senior and junior presentation night on Friday, March 15 at Queenscliff Cricket Club.

“We’ll get together and celebrate the season and then go reflect on what we can do next season,” Armstrong-Rowe said.

Originally published as Extreme heat forces North Geelong, St Joseph’s A-grade women’s grand final to be abandoned