NORTH West Warriors must beat Leinster Lightning with a bonus point in the final match of the Inter-provincial Cup in September to claim the trophy after crashing to another defeat at Eglinton yesterday.

The Knights won their first 50-over game of the season by two wickets, a low-scoring clash with only three batsmen in the match scoring more than 20. It was a third straight win for Knights after ending the recent Twenty20 festival with back to back victories.

But what has happened to the Warriors? All-conquering for the first half of the season including the better of two draws in the Championship against previously invincible Lightning, they have now lost four matches in a row, including all three at the T20 Festival.

Andy McBrine won the toss on a pitch which showed unpredictable bounce from the start but it was no excuse for only three batsmen reaching double figures and using up only 38 overs.

Then when the Knights went out to chase 140 – it was only that many because of a last wicket partnership of 24, the second highest of the innings – McBrine used only five bowlers, leaving Ryan Macbeth, Aaron Gillespie and most surprisingly of all, Ross Allen on his home ground, watching and wondering why they were being ignored.

McBrine backed himself to do all the damage, bringing himself on in only the seventh over, and although he had to wait until his sixth over to get a wicket, he was bowling well. When he took two wickets in two balls to end the first over of his second spell, to reduce Knights to 112-6, it was game on.

But although Graham Kennedy completed a team hat-trick with the first ball of the next over, McBrine’s success only made the absence of Allen from the attack even stranger.

Neil Rock and Jacob Mulder averted any crisis with the winning post in sight, and although Mulder gave his wicket away with five runs still needed, Stephen Bunting hobbled to the middle and hit the winning boundary with more than 11 overs to spare.

Bunting had joined the never-ending Knights’ injury list when he pulled up with a hamstring problem in his fifth over , incredibly the fifth Instonians player who is now out of action. At least the Knights don’t have to replace him for the three-day Championship match between the teams, starting this morning, as he wasn’t selected in that squad.

Niall O’Brien was responsible for shepherding the Warriors through all but 10 balls of the innings after the early mayhem when Mark Adair – fresh from his seven-wicket haul for Holywood on Saturday – ripped through the international top order to reduce the home side to 24-4. Kennedy stayed with him for nine overs but that was as good as got for Warriors on another day to forget.