Cricket: Family pride to the fore as Connor O’Leary marks 50th match for Whanganui

Coach Warren Marr presents Connor O’Leary with his black cap for his 50th game for Whanganui. Photo / Verity Johnson

Cricketer Connor O’Leary has celebrated a career highlight this season – and also clocked up 50 games for the Whanganui representative team.

Twenty-five-year-old O’Leary gave a gritty performance with bat and ball during Jurgens Demolition Whanganui’s first-innings win over Horowhenua-Kāpiti on Sunday, which also marked his 50th match for the association.

“I’m feeling old. The knees are pretty tender,” O’Leary said after the game.

O’Leary, his spinner brother Hadleigh O’Leary, and young pace bowlers Oscar Mabin and Charlie Meredith had been desperately firing the ball in at Donnelly Park as wickets tumbled, but mini-partnerships had Horowhenua-Kāpiti inching closer to a third straight Furlong Cup victory over Whanganui.

“They bowled very, very well – names to watch in the next few years,” O’Leary said of his teammates.

The home side fell 41 runs short, making O’Leary’s 3-55 from a typically workhorse 18 overs decisive, as was his defiant 12 not-out as the supporting act in the 10th wicket stand of 62 with player of the match Mabin.

Now a young veteran of the team, O’Leary had played 49 two-day Furlong Cup and 50-over or Twenty20 Chapple Cup games before the weekend.

O’Leary was dropped for the game at Marton’s Centennial Park, but returned the following week for the moment he rates as the highlight of his Whanganui career – his match-winning 5-82 as the team upset Taranaki by just 11 runs on first-innings points.

O’Leary rated his other personal representative highlights as being part of the successes of his younger brothers, who were also making names for themselves in cricket.

He spoke with pride about watching brother Shaun score 121 not out on debut against Horowhenua-Kāpiti in October 2021, and then Hadleigh’s impressive 6-56 against Manawatū in December 2022, both getting on the Representative Honours Board before him.

There was also the dream run for Whanganui to make their first Chapple Cup final in 27 years during the February 2023 edition of the tournament, which was played in Twenty20 format.

In the semifinal upset win by four runs against Nelson, the three O’Leary family members had a share of all nine wickets to fall, either as bowlers or catchers.

O’Leary debuted for Whanganui in February 2016 at Tasman Tanning (Victoria) Park against the dominant Hawke’s Bay who scored a daunting 612, in his words “on a road pitch, a long day”, on their way to retaining the Furlong Cup for another summer.

Still at Whanganui Collegiate, he became a regular in the side the following season, during which he also played for the Central Districts Under-17s and was named Cricket Whanganui’s Junior Player of the Year.