While last year's drought-breaking flag — the Blues’ first Haisman since the 1973-74 season — was met with unmitigated euphoria, this premiership will seemingly not sink in for some time after the coronavirus pandemic caused the weekend's decider to be cancelled.
As the higher-ranked team heading to finals, the Blues were awarded the flag, but skipper Liam Gledhill said there were certainly no celebrations at Numurkah Showgrounds.
“It's a very, very surreal feeling,” Gledhill said.
“We trained (on Tuesday night), we finished up and our president called up A and B-grade for a chat. He broke us the news A-grade had won the flag, and B-grade had lost theirs, and the reasoning behind it.
“I don't think anyone spoke for about five minutes after that; it was complete shock and we all just wanted to play.”
While on board with the association's decision to cancel, Gledhill said he, his teammates and opposition felt robbed of the chance to play in a grand final — the thing every cricketer dreams of doing.
“You want that feeling of playing in a grand final, but as a club we understand why we can't play, it's out of the league's hands,” he said.
“On one hand, okay, we've won another premiership, but it's just a very weird feeling. And there's our B-grade squad we're very close with, and they didn't get the chance to play for their flag.
“I feel for Nagambie, and I know for a fact they really wanted to play, I spoke to Luke Nolan the other night and he was quite adamant he wanted to play. We were both desperate to play, but we understand it's above us.”
As much as anything, Gledhill said he felt "massively" sympathetic for Nagambie, with its chance of a breakthrough flag taken from it without a ball being bowled.
“They played great cricket the last six to eight weeks, and they would have been confident of going to the grand final and beating us, the same way we were confident we could do that,” he said.
“It was all built up for a really big game and we're both disappointed we haven't had the chance to play the match, that's what hurts the most.”
As time passes, Numurkah will be considered the third club this millennium to win consecutive Haisman Shields, behind Central Park-St Brendan's (2005-11 and 2014-16) and Karramomus (2001-03 and 2012-13).
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