New South Wales wrests initiative in Under-19 Final

New South Wales has snatched away the advantage from Queensland in this year's National Under-19 Championship Final in Newcastle, inspiring a middle order collapse to leave the visitors at 7/152 at tea as they chase a victory target of 243 on the concluding day of the tournament.

The Queenslanders looked to be wresting away favouritism from the hosts when they moved swiftly to a mark of 2/93 in the hour after lunch. But the loss of two wickets in the space of three deliveries to guileful medium pacer Brad Roworth (3/31) caused their best-laid victory plans to unravel.

Roworth landed arguably the most important blow of the match when he lured opener Aaron Maynard (42) into a mistimed drive. Having snared a series of slips catches himself in the match, Julian Nielsen (0) then fell to one, edging a delivery of good length from Roworth to Brett Eriksson at first slip.

It was suddenly 4/93, and worse was to come for Queensland as Greg Moller (35) was disastrously run out after a ball had been turned off the line of the hip to backward square leg.

Murray Bragg (19) and Chris McCabe (16) stabilised the cause with a gritty stand of 28 runs for the sixth wicket but it wasn't really enough to shift the momentum back their side's way. And New South Wales' position of strength was soon reinforced when Roworth came around the wicket to find the edge of McCabe's bat and when captain Jarrad Burke eased a delivery straight through Bragg's defences.

Queensland's tail is by no means the worst in the competition and there's still a full session of play available to them as they mount one last effort to score the 91 runs still required for triumph. But genuine aspirations of victory are dwindling quickly, and a major reversal would now be required for such an ambition to reach fruition.

Elsewhere in Newcastle, Tasmania and Victoria have enjoyed great days to fill third and fourth placings respectively. The Tasmanians earned their place in Section A next season when they scored a tough five wicket win in a low-scoring contest with Western Australia. Victoria, meanwhile, relied on an innings of 99 from Adam Crosthwaite to amass a score of 6/252 in response to South Australia's total of 175 from yesterday.

At last report, Northern Territory is placed at a total of 4/109 as it chases 234 for victory over the Australian Capital Territory in the duel for seventh place.