Waringstown’s ‘remarkable’ run ends in Premier League title glory

The Villagers suffered a heavy 175-run defeat in their second Premier League game of the season to North Down - but haven’t looked back since, winning 10 matches on the trot to pick up a title they last won in 2017.

Their success was secured with a 12-run victory over defending champions CIYMS on Saturday before being made official following North Down’s 15-run loss to Woodvale the following day.

Waringstown were in the driving seat for most of this season and Nelson believes it’s the best league triumph of his career.

“We are over the moon,” he said. “I said at the start of the year that this was going to be one of the toughest Premier Leagues to win in quite a while and to get over the line I’m delighted and very proud of all the boys.

“Certainly in my time of playing, in terms of league titles, this has probably been the best campaign I’ve been involved in.

“We started off with that heavy defeat at Comber and haven’t lost a game since, so I think that’s remarkable.

“The collective team effort has been superb.

“A lot of people will just look at Andre’s runs or Humey’s runs from when he came in, but from the start of the year there have been people chipping in with big scores or big spells throughout.

“It has been a real team effort and I think that has been the most pleasing thing about it.”

It was hard not to get excited by the batting line-up Waringstown had put together over the winter, with proven overseas professional Andre Malan and Graham Hume joining the likes of Nelson, James McCollum, Adam Dennison and Greg Thompson.

It’s one thing looking good on paper but that unit more than delivered when it mattered most, posting four of the six largest team totals this season, which included going past 300 on four occasions and scoring a mammoth 420 against Carrickfergus.