Panthers pounded by raging Rams

By Paul Pickering
REIGNING premier Ringwood issued Dandenong a harsh reality check on Saturday in the form of a 144-run pounding.
The Panthers were always going to struggle chasing 306 on a muggy and overcast day two at Jubilee Park, but it was the glaring lack of resistance from the visitors that most worried captain Darren Dempsey.
Young opener Brett Forsyth was the only batsman to place any real value on his wicket, top-scoring with an industrious 52 from 131 balls as the top order crumbled around him.
Dandenong’s misery ended on 162, just 56 overs into what they had hoped would be a long and determined day at the crease.
“It was one of those days where you’d like to start again and go out and do what we intended to do, which was to try and bat the day,” Dempsey reflected. “There were some really bad shots and it’s hard to work out where they came from.”
The conditions were conducive to swing bowling and the Rams were good enough to take full advantage, with Drew McKay (3/27) and Michael King (3/40) accounting for the Panthers’ top order.
Forsyth’s dismissal triggered a mini-collapse as the visitors lost three wickets without advancing the score from 116. That trio included in-form Bushranger Darren Pattinson, who lasted just one ball after rejoining the team for day two.
Dandenong lost its last seven wickets for just 49 runs, leaving Dempsey to ponder his side’s place in the Premier pecking order.
“I think it just shows that we’re probably a little bit off the top couple of teams,” he said. “We seem to smash the teams below us and we’re really competitive against the teams around us, but to go to that next level we’ve still got a little bit of work to do in all facets (of the game).”
Having failed to test the top-of-the-table Rams, the eighth-placed Panthers will face the two teams directly below Ringwood on the ladder, Melbourne and Prahran, over the next three weekends.
“It’s going to be a massive challenge,” Dempsey said. “At the very worst we have to win one of them, otherwise we’re right back in the field.”
Dandenong may take some heart from the Twenty20 demolition of the Demons at Shepley Oval last week.
The skipper led from the front with a brutal 95 from 65 balls – including eight fours and four sixes – and had great support from Tom Donnell (46 from 35) and James Nanopoulos (25 not out from 19) as the home side posted 3/187 from their 20 overs.
Melbourne never looked like reaching that total, losing wickets early and often on their way to an all-out score of 125 in the 19th over. Fairbanks was the chief destroyer with 4/29.
The Demons will return to Pultney Street for the two-dayer this weekend.