EGERTON skipper Paul Stafford was proud of his side’s performance in this year’s Barclays Wealth Lancashire Cup despite their eight-wicket defeat to Firwood Bootle in Sunday’s final at St Annes.

The Longworth Road club were hoping to lift the trophy for the first time since 1977 but their total of 120 on a very good pitch was inadequate and the Liverpool Competition outfit coasted to victory in just 22.1 overs.

“We were simply beaten by the better team on the day,” said Stafford, whose opening partnership of 41 in eight overs with top scorer Stuart Hornby (28) was one of the few pleasing interludes in the game for his side’s admirably loyal band of supporters.

“But we’ve beaten clubs of the quality of St Annes and Lytham to get here and we just have to look forward to next year.

“Their spinners bowled very straight and they were well backed up in the field which just built the pressure up on us. We just didn’t turn up really.”

The facts of the match back up the skipper’s frank judgement.

Once Bootle’s slow left-armer Patrick Jackson had dismissed both openers with 52 on the board, the Egerton batsmen never escaped the stranglehold applied by David Snellgrove and his experienced attack.

Sri Lankan professional Sajith Fernando struggled almost as much as his colleagues before he miscued Mark O’Connor to Craig Prince and was dismissed for 20. Fifteen of the 44.1 overs bowled in the innings were maidens and no one from the Bolton League outfit was able to take the attack to the Bootle bowlers. Jackson finished with 4-18 and man-of-the-match Snellgrove conceded just 12 runs from his nine overs of beautifully flighted off-spin.

Bootle reached their victory target of 121 with over half their allotted overs to spare. Prince and Snellgrove put on 68 for the first wicket and Egerton’s only consolation was that Fernando dismissed both Prince for 35 and the Lancashire batsman Steven Mullaney for a duck.

But Jackson and Snellgrove completed the victory in a flurry of shots, the Bootle skipper finishing on 75 not out to seal his side’s sixth victory in the competition.