Southland’s senior club cricket season has reached the play-off stage, with three teams left in the hunt for the 2026 ILT Premier League title.
Invercargill-Old Boys has finished the round-robin stage of the competition on top of the standings, which means it has advanced straight to the March 28 grand final.
Appleby and Waikoikoi will now square off this coming Saturday to decide who will take on Invercargill-Old Boys in the grand final.
Waikoikoi will head into this Saturday’s game coming off a bye, while Appleby was pushed by Southland Boys’ High School before eventually winning a rain-affected game on Saturday.
The pupils posted 149 for six from 39 overs batting first, set up by player-coach Shaun Fitzgibbon’s unbeaten 76 from 116 balls opening the batting.
He found some important support from Angus Manson (31).
Appleby was seven down in reply when they passed the revised DLS target of 153 from 39 overs.
Captain Sam Downing produced an unbeaten 34 to steer his team home with important contributions from Reid Murray (29) and Cooper Goad (20) late in the chase.
Find the full Appleby-SBHS scorecard here
Invercargill-Old Boys had no problems dispatching Marist to end its round-robin campaign on Saturday.
Marist mustered just 79 batting first before Invercargill-Old chased it down in the 17th over with the loss of two wickets.
Find the full Invercargill/Old Boys-Marist scorecard here
Southland’s Division One competition will also hit the semifinal stage this season on Saturday.
The Royal Riders have been good throughout the competition, as has Central-Western, with the two teams favoured to advance to the decider.
Semifinals have already been played in the Division Two competition on Saturday, with two tight contests seeing the Te Anau Development team and Southland Boys’ High School Red advance to the final.
Southland Boys Red posted just 94 batting first in its semifinal Waikoikoi B, largely thanks to the inform Sam Phillips, who contributed 39 opening the batting.
In reply, SBHS restricted Waikoikoi to 88 to keep their title hopes alive, with Tyler Walkinshaw the star of the day, taking six for 22 with the ball to claim victory.
In the other semifinal, Sam Hodson was the key figure in lifting Te Anau to victory against the second SBHS team in the competition.
SBHS Blue won the toss and chose to bat first. It posted 142 with player-coach Mark Billcliff top-scoring with 47.
Sam Hodson took three wickets with the ball before then top-scoring with 42 opening the batting, setting Te Anau’s chase off to a good start.
Although there were some nerves in the Te Anau camp when they passed the total with just one wicket to spare.