Macquarie are 3-46 in reply to Leagues’ total of 204 with Mitch Quinn and Brendan Badenoch the not out batsmen.

Leagues captain Kyle Bray won the toss and elected to bat first at Wayne Richards Park and his top order did what they had rarely done all year – kept wickets in hand.

Bray took advantage of his top order’s positive attitude and topscored with 62, but it wasn’t without some luck.

He was dropped twice in the space of two or three overs before he was 20.

“The main difference to what has happened previously is that we started well and only lost one wicket in the first session,” Bray said.

“We normally lose three or four in that time so to only lose one is unheard of for us.”

Phil McVicar and Nick Maxwell combined for a 50-run second-wicket stand before Bray took full toll of a tiring Macquarie attack.

“It’s the best performance with the bat from us all year,” Bray said.

Macquarie’s cause wasn’t helped by James Terrett being no-balled out of the attack after captain Josh Hyde and Brendan Badenoch had bowled the opening 20 overs between them.

“We had Terrett back from a dislocated finger yesterday, but he only bowled a couple of overs before he bowled three no-ball full-bungers in a row,” Hyde said.

“It meant the rest of us had to bowl really long spells on a hot day.”

Hyde said their fielding needed to improve, but he was happy with the way his bowlers stuck to the task.

“We dropped eight catches which didn’t help our cause,” he said.

“They probably should have made 250 or 260 so it wasn’t a bad effort from us to keep them to 200.

“Credit to Port City though, they made Badenoch bowl 19 overs and while he still took five wickets, they showed a lot of determination.”

The Macquarie captain remained confident the remaining batsmen could chase down the remaining runs.

They still have the majority of their regular top seven in the shed.

“Next week we still have myself, Ethan, Pell and Sippel comes back in so we’ve got just about our full-strength batting lineup to come,” Hyde said.

“I’m still confident we can chase the rest of the runs down next week.”

Out at Wauchope, Port Pirates first innings batting woes continued when they were rolled for 60 in 22 overs.

It was after opening bowler Paul Stait took 7-29 in Wauchope’s total of 109. Bailey Smith provided nuisance value for Pirates and remained 37 not out at the end of their first dig.

Wauchope will resume their second innings at 0-24 next week.