FALMOUTH’s captain said he is not counting his chickens yet as his side’s Vinter Cup defence rolls into the semi-finals.

Adrian Noott saw his team ease to victory by 77 runs on Thursday evening away at Hayle in the quarter-final of the Twenty20 cup.

After being put into bat, Falmouth put on 138-2 with opening batsman Stefan Churcher hitting 81 not out off 62 balls with seven fours and four sixes.

They then bowled out the hosts for 61 with George Popperwell claiming figures of three for 13 off his four overs amd Guy Leathley, Liam Hoban and Anup Revandkar taking two wickets each.

With Camborne up next for Falmouth, Noott believes his side has a good chance of retaining the cup, but added the team are not trying to get ahead of themselves.

Noott said: “Thursday was a really positive result for us especially after losing against Redruth the Saturday before.

“We were really solid with the bat and Stefan was absolutely brilliant and then everyone chipped in with the ball.

“At this stage of the competition it is anyone’s game so it is all about delivery at the crucial time, which is what we did on Thursday. All we can do is turn up, take each game as it comes and see how we go.”

On Monday evening, Camborne qualified for the semis after beating Beacon by 39 runs.

The hosts scored 131-8 with Ryan Du Plessis top scoring with 40 before limiting Beacon to 92-9 with Craig Johnson getting figures of 4-12.

In the other quarter finals, St Just knocked out Paul with an eight-wicket victory and Truro beat Penzance by the same margin.

The semi between Falmouth and Camborne takes place on June 26 at Helston.

St Just and Truro face off in the other semi on June 25 at Troon with the final on July 9.

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Falmouth arrived at the picturesque ground of Werrington with question marks against their ability to score enough runs to win many games this season, David Palmer writes.
 

To date, totals of less than 130 dominated the scorebook. Current league champions Werrington batted first on a flat, hard surface and dominated the opening session threatening to build a total of 300 or more.

It was the Smeeth brothers, Ben the captain and Alex, fresh from his mammoth efforts for Cornwall, scoring 204 runs in the famous victory, that took control with the latter scoring 54 and Ben 87.

Once they had departed, the Falmouth bowling held the rest of the Werrington batsmen in check and George Popperwell returned excellent figures of six for 59 runs backed up by Liam Hoban with three wickets.

Werrington being dismissed for a challenging 273.
 

The Falmouth reply was quickly in trouble and they were reduced to 40 for 5 and it looked as they they would suffer a heavy defeat. To the rescue came Harry Roberts, 47, and Jacob Stephen, 41, backed up by Guy Leathley, 17 not out, to take Falmouth to a respectable 194.
 

Falmouth now find themselves facing a season of avoiding relegation and this weekend travel to fellow strugglers Newquay who are just four points behind Falmouth. Redruth prop up the table a further eight points behind.