Irving Romaine, the Bailey’s Bay coach, has conceded the One Premier Division after his team’s third loss in five games left them second from bottom at the halfway stage.

Romaine watched his team fail to chase down the 183 posted by St David’s, the unbeaten league champions, on Sunday and left the ground knowing that St David’s will need to lose at least three of their remaining five games to have any chance of dethroning their Eastern Counties rivals.

“That’s out of our reach now, they’ll have to lose a lot of games, so the league is pretty much done,” Romaine said. “The most we can look forward to is to try to win county.”

Romaine admits to having some concerns about chasing a total under 200, with recent matches between the teams being low-scoring affairs. Last year St David’s failed to chase 128 in the Belco Cup final against Bay, then won by 31 runs in their first league meeting against Bay after posting just 151.

Bay avenged that defeat in the second league encounter when St David’s, set 167 to win and clinch the league, could only manage 140 in reply.

Two years ago in a league match at St David’s, Bay made hard work of chasing a modest 101 posted by St David’s before eventually winning by three wickets.

On Sunday another low score proved difficult to chase as St David’s held their nerve to pull off their fifth league win by 30 runs. They are now firmly in the driver’s seat with the league likely to be settled well before the two teams meet again on August 27.

“Over the last two seasons it’s always low-scoring games,” Romaine said. “Last year when we split the games it was still low scoring, and the team that batted first always won the game.

“I was just hoping for a change of luck if they got a bigger total. I think it would have been a different approach from our batsmen also, they looked to just cruise to it and I think if a bigger total was on the board then the mentality would have changed if they knew they had to score more runs.

“It was almost like ‘OK’, we’ll get these easily’, and it backfired. We just need to concentrate on our batting, we held a team to 180 runs when they have been scoring 200-plus every week.”

George O’Brien led the St David’s bowlers with four for 28 which came in three spells. Bay were cruising at 88 for two when a 57-run for the third wicket between opener Terryn Fray and captain Rodney Trott ended when Trott was trapped lbw by Delyone Borden. They then slumped to 122 for six in the next 14 overs as St David’s took the upper hand.

“It came about from some rash shots, when it was a simple game of playing the game in front of them, taking the singles and we would have won the game easily,” Romaine stated. “The turning point was the run out of Tre [Govia] which gave them a bit of momentum, but we were still on top at that time.

“Some of our batsmen choose to hit across the line, sideways instead of in front of them, and we paid the price.”

The match produced a big crowd with Bay fans turning out, expecting their team’s fortunes to have changed after last weekend’s win over Western Stars. “The fan support that we have is a big thing, they just don’t like Bailey’s Bay losing,” Romaine said.

“We have a whole community following us, so we have to play for them. Every Sunday they support us, home or away. Every league game is an outing for them, especially at home when it is like a mini county for the fans.”

OJ Pitcher, the St David’s captain, knows they league is theirs to lose but is urging his players not to lose focus. “We can’t take anything for granted, on the day anybody can beat anybody,” he stressed.

“If we get to the point where we have a few games left and the league is already over then we’ll take that. Bay always gives us a good game, it’s a rivalry but nowadays it’s a friendly rivalry. A lot of the guys are ‘tight’, they have shown a lot of respect for us since we lost Fiqre [Crockwell].

“People come to see good cricket and they know right now on paper we’re the best two teams in Bermuda.

“I thank the fans for their support, we play for them. We look forward to three more weeks when we meet them again.”