ELMORE struck early with the ball and never took the foot off the throat of Colbinabbin as the Redbacks won their first Northern United Cricket Association premiership for 22 years on Saturday.

The eight-wicket victory was a massive sigh of relief for the Redbacks, who had been the best team of the NUCA home and away season the previous two years, but had no silverware to show for it.

Again, the Redbacks were the dominant team of the home and away season and this time rose to the occasion with a dominant performance against the Ducks at Heathcote.

The Redbacks comprehensively outplayed Colbinabbin with both bat and ball en route to their first flag since 1998 that could also carry an extra significance to it as well given the uncertainty around the future of the NUCA competition beyond this season.

The day started well for Colbinabbin with skipper Daniel Morgan winning the toss and batting, but there was little joy for the Ducks for the remainder of the afternoon.

The Ducks batted out their 40 overs, but were restricted to 9-88, with middle-order batsman Brian Dwyer playing a lone hand.

Dwyer was the only Colbinabbin player to reach double figures and made more than half the Ducks' score with his gritty knock of 48 off 94 balls.

The Ducks' innings quickly went into rebuild mode when they fell to 4-19, with their two leading run-scorers of the season, Hamish Hooppell (3) and Morgan (5), both among the early wickets.

Elmore skipper Matt Gilmour (2-12), Tyler Oliver (2-15) and James Harney (2-16) took two wickets each for the Redbacks.

The Redbacks had been 2-34 in their chase before Harney (36 n.o. off 37) and Gilmour (31 n.o. off 106) guided Elmore to victory in the 32^nd over.

Harney and man-of-the-match Gilmour shared in an unbroken stand of 55 as the Redbacks (2-89) won with 53 balls to spare.

While it was a drought-breaking premiership victory for Elmore, Colbinabbin's last premiership still remains a distant 1988.

Morgan (1-12) and wily spinner Chris Guinane (1-16) took one wicket each for the Ducks.

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