Write off the Pointers at your peril

Once the proudest and strongest cricket club in the Mid West, Bluff Point fell into a lull that would extend for over two decades throughout the 90s, noughties and even into this decade.

Over the past 22 years, the proud Pointers have played in just four finals series.

At the beginning of the 2013-14 GRCB season, they were well down the pecking order. Towns and Wanderers were the established powerhouses and Sportsmans the untamed yet unpredictable talent generally expected to claim the third spot and thus, a finals berth.

In the depths of the ladder lay the fledgling, fighting yet struggling combined side of Chapman Valley-Northampton, and Bluff Point, an unfeared opponent whose flickering light of existence was still burning despite regular threats of being diminished.

But in that season the Pointers developed a habit of upsets, and by the halfway mark, they sat atop the GRCB ladder. A surprise to most, but a position they were not expected to hold. Come finals time the “Big Three” will surely have restored order and would be vying for the premiership.

But the Pointers kept finding ways to win, often with the assistance of the one remaining player from their golden era, Michael Giles. And indeed after the final match of the regular season, there sat Bluff Point at the very top of the table.

With a direct ticket through to their first grand final in 25 years, the Pointers would be well overawed by the finals-primed Towns, but the basis for growth after such a lengthy spell in the wilderness was born.

Last season they weren’t as convincing, and many forecast the return of the Bluff Point of old when they succumbed to four successive losses at the start of the season. But the Pointers came back and again, kept winning.

After such a dismal start they were good enough to make finals before going down to the same opponent that claimed them in the previous season decider. Close again, but not close enough.

So far in 2015-16, there has been little to write home about regarding Bluff Point’s form. Six matches into the season they are winless and yet to post a score over 150. But if the past two seasons are anything to go by, Bluff Point might just bite back.