CRICKET - City unbeaten as Horner's ton seals easy victory

A patient century by Bert Horner steered City to a comfortable victory over Whangarei Boys' High School on Saturday in the Northland Cricket's premier grade 50-over competition.
Horner scored eight boundaries in his innings of 106 after City won the toss and batted at Kensington Park.
The century anchored his side's innings and saw them reach a very competitive total of 221 in 48 overs after rain interrupted play.
Boys' High made life tough for the City batsmen early on, with Sean Doel removing Horner's opening partner Owain Hopkins for six but Horner used his experience to rotate the strike and, with Ian Page, saw off the opening bowlers.
After getting himself in and beginning to score freely, Horner formed another partnership with Kurt Wilson which saw his side to a good total before he was caught by Alex Seymour off the bowling of Doel.
Boys' High skipper Rory Darkins said Horner's display was impressive and certainly not matched by anyone in his side.
"Our bowling effort wasn't bad, considering the conditions, but we just weren't convincing with the bat again," Darkins said. The arrival of professional Stephen John this week should bolster what had been a slow start to the season for the school's first eleven, he said.
John, an all-rounder who played for Northland last season, will replace Jamie Lee as the school's player-coach but his arrival has been held up by visa problems.
"Stephen will add a bit of structure to our side. He'll be able to hold up one end with the bat and hopefully he'll be able to get a few of the better batsmen out too, which will help our cause a bit," Darkins said.
City join Kaipara Flats as the only other unbeaten side after Saturday's three matches. Kaipara, captained by James Marshall, overcame a fairly strong Onerahi effort by putting in another good performance with the ball.
Onerahi would have been reasonably happy with their bowling effort, limiting Kaipara's formidable batting line-up to 174, with Brad Wilson top-scoring with 57. But for a middle-order revival between Tas Satti (36) and Kyron Dill (33), Onerahi might have done a lot better.
Satti and Dill did the damage for Kaipara in the field as well, claiming seven wickets between them as Kaipara knocked Onerahi over for just 79 runs.
Zimbabwean professional Greg Strydom offered the only resistance, scoring 45, with none of the other Onerahi batsmen getting out of single figures.
Maungakaramera made short work of Kamo's total of 148, surpassing it in just 27 overs, with Dean Child and Michael Parlane unbeaten on 74 and 59 respectively.
Kamo had their chances of making something of the match but, despite removing Mark Southee without scoring, they failed to take straightforward chances offered by both Parlane and Child early on.