In the third of a series of reviews, The Examiner looks over Westbury's 2020-21 Cricket North season.
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Season in a nutshell: Played 14, won 10, drew one, lost three.
Playing without Dane Anderson for the first time in 10 years, the Shamrocks looked every bit as dominant throughout the season but stumbled at key moments.
Disappointing outings in one-day and two-day finals cost Westbury the chance to secure multiple flags for the third-straight season.
Team highlight: The Shamrocks were the only side all year to beat eventual premier Launceston - first in the T20 cup final and again in round 16.
A 10-wicket defeat of Riverside in the Greater Northern Cup semi-final marked one of the side's best performances of the year.
Team lowlight: Westbury will look back on the year disappointed not to have won at least one more trophy.
The Greater Northern Cup final loss to Launceston was particularly un-Westbury-like as the Lions romped to an easy eight-wicket win.
RELATED: Shamrocks clinch T20 title
Individual performance: Chathura Athukorala produced one of the great one-day innings in a nail-biting loss to Launceston.
The all-rounder whacked 163 off 100 balls to see the Shamrocks within eight runs of chasing 6-348.
What worked: The bowling attack shared the load beautifully with Kieren Hume (25 wickets) finishing in the league's top three for the second year running.
Joel Lloyd, Nick Spencer and Alex Kerrison all took between 18 and 23 scalps - the latter boasting an economy rate of 2.29 after a mid-season purple patch yielded 18-82 off 59 overs.
What didn't work: Batting collapses hit Westbury on several occasions during the season, including losing 8-22 against Launceston and 7-38 against Riverside.
Best recruit: Athukorala hit 452 runs at 37.67 and also impressed with the ball when fit, taking 5-29 against Devonport. Jesse Digney made some key contributions including a match-winning 38 in the T20 final.
Surprise packet: Joel Lloyd took just one A-grade wicket last year but finished with 20 at 16.55 in 2020-21.
Five scores of 20-plus also proved handy in the tail.
MORE SEASON REVIEWS: South Launceston
Best and fairest: Skipper Dan Murfet was named club champion after a career-best season that featured a maiden ton and 584 runs at 44.92.
Captain says: I feel like we left the season with unfinished business in a bit of a disappointing way.
Up until the preliminary final we were really building nicely - we'd just beaten Launny in the last round and unfortunately if you're not on the ball in big games you find out about it pretty quickly.
I think if anything it's left a big hunger there going into next season - I don't think we've been as hungry after the end of a season as what we are at the moment.
We literally didn't know what that feeling was [of missing the final] and we felt it pretty hard.
Spence has retired for the last time I think. He's going to be a big loss for us - he's 40 years old but he's still as good as when he was in his late 20s.
We'll be looking for a few of us to step up into the bowling ranks to cover that space but I think other than that we won't have too much of a turnover.
Joel Lloyd took his bowling to a new level this year, he picked up a yard of pace and was swinging the ball back in with his left arm.
Jordan French made a step up with his batting, he showed he was capable of being in our best team and Nathan Parkin as well ... these guys that have been around for a little while have now taken a step up.
I certainly don't think we're in a bad place - I think we're just as close to another premiership as what we were at the start of last year.
There's certainly some positive signs going into next season.