Clay Smith was probably too young to remember Gregory Foggo losing the Cup Match Cup in 1979, but he can now appreciate what the former St. George's captain went through 17 years ago in Somerset.

Whatever Foggo endured Smith, too, is now experiencing after Somerset pulled off one of the most exciting victories in the history of Cup Match.

And while Smith admits the victory will do a lot to boost the declining interest in the annual mid-summer classic, he would rather not be remembered as the captain who lost the cup after 13 years.

"I think it was the most exciting Cup Match ever and it was good for the game but I would rather have been on the winning side,'' said Smith.

In the buildup to the match, Smith had said he could not "see Somerset winning the trophy for another ten years'' but the west enders defied the odds in winning by three wickets with two balls to spare.

Not surprisingly, pundits have already determined where the match was lost for St. George's.

And Foggo, now the chairman of the St. George's selectors, questions the decision to line the boundary with fielders after taking the field at 5.14 in defence of the target of 252.

"I feel the game was lost when we took the field and had everybody on the boundary,'' said Foggo, who felt a more attacking approach would have forced the Somerset batsmen into mistakes.

"You never go on the field looking for a draw from the get-go. I felt we could have won the game...by attacking. That's always been our strength, but the batsmen had no kind of pressure.'' Foggo pointed out yesterday that he voiced his concerns quickly to one of the St. George's fielders. "As soon as I saw it, I felt we were putting ourselves in trouble,'' he said. "We always went for victory and then settled for the draw when victory was impossible. We never tried to get them out, we went on the field trying to stop them scoring runs.'' Asked about his tactics, Smith replied: "That's one of the areas where a lot of people were very critical, but from a cricketing point of view it was very sensible because we had to save as many runs as possible in the first hour.

"Our job was restricting them as best we could.'' Commentator and former Somerset captain Randy Horton criticised Smith, too, for not declaring during the 20-minute last-wicket stand between Gregg Foggo and David Adams.

"The last time we were up there we scored 237 in an hour and the last 20 overs, so I knew it was possible,'' Smith said of his decision.

Declaring and losing the cup would have been even worse.

"Somerset is an extremely small field so scoring eight runs an over is not an extemely hard task,'' he feels. "I knew from the outset Somerset were going to go after it.

"Where we really struggled was with our opening bowlers who didn't keep a consistent line.'' Smith also defended his decision not to use Lionel Cann in the second innings.

"Albert and Jeff feed on medium pace and I also didn't bring on Clevie (Wade) until late,'' he said.

"Now that I think about it, we really lost it in our batting. We lost four of our quality batsmen for something like 10 runs but we still managed to get 250.'' Somerset, despite the defensive field, still managed to hit 24 boundaries (13 fours, a five and 10 sixes) during their run chase. Three sixes in succession by Corey Hill off David Adams proved decisive, while Albert Steede was the hero with his first century in Cup Match.

"When Albert is in that zone there is not much you can do,'' Smith stressed.

Now Smith wants the chance to try to win the cup back next year. Both he and Foggo say Somerset won't hold it for more than three years. "They took something from us and we want it back, not just for myself but for the die-hard supporters,'' said Smith.

Clay Smith FINE FORM -- Jason Simons of Cleveland shows some of the good bowling form that helped him to take two wickets for 21 and spearhead his team to a seven-wicket victory over Nationals yesterday. More cricket on Page 23.