The Bulls sewed up the bottom-place finish with a loss to Russells Creek this past Saturday. Allansford-Panmure's upset win against Nestles was the nail in the coffin.

While it's impossible to fully compare the Lachi Rooke-coached outfit to past wooden spooners, given this is the first season of fully limited overs cricket in the competition's history, indications suggest it's one of the best.

Brierly-Christ Church has posted 1705 runs from its 11 games, an average of 155. In Warrnambool, teams clocking that mark are probably making a par score on most grounds.

This past season's bottom two, Wesley-CBC and Nestles, averaged 111.2 and 112.2 runs per game as a comparison.

The season before that, Port Fairy's average total was 105.

These statistics aren't to put down either of those three clubs - which have all enjoyed major improvements since then - but just to highlight Rooke's men are probably as unlucky as they'll ever be to wear the title as wooden spooner.

To put things further into perspective, Brierly-Christ Church's team which netted a second-place finish this past season could only manage 130 runs an innings on average.

So technically, its players have improved their output on 2019-20, a season in which the club managed a semi-final appearance.

There are factors to consider. The turf pitch at Brierly has been playing well this season and yielding good scores. Nathan Murphy has enjoyed a stellar season and could just about take home the league's cricketer of the year award with any luck.

So where have they been falling down? Statistically, it's in what they've been conceding.

The Bulls have leaked a whopping average of 189.9 runs an innings, compared to 119 this past season, but are taking just under two wickets less per innings than they did in that semi-final season.

Rooke is competitive and doesn't like losing. No coach worth their salt does.

But the Bulls will take positives out of the fact they've ushered in the next generation of talent through integrating youngsters like Will Colla, Matt Gome, Jordan Telford and Darcy Dobson, will look upon the season as a failure results wise but positive in other areas.

Rather than huge, wide problems, it's been a culmination of little errors and lapses in games which has left the Mark Murphy-captained side at one and 10 after 11 games.

For people inside the club, that will be encouraging. Lapses happen when you're young, lapses happen when you're inexperienced.

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Lapses are easy to iron out and Rooke, who has tasted success as a junior coach, and Murphy, who has led teams to grand finals as a captain, would look ahead with optimism.

Another boon was the club's success in the Twenty20 format. It reached the grand final of the Warrnambool and District Cricket Association competition, losing out to Allansford-Panmure, but it's something which adds a bit of hope nonetheless.

It'd be a great shame if a side which has been largely very competitive throughout the season was relegated on this form but the beauty of the situation is for the club that there are no concrete plans in place to bring that system in.

Warrnambool and District Cricket Association has previously said results from this season would likely count towards any future promotion or relegations but if the Bulls can climb back to mid table, it'll likely be enough to survive in division one.

The bottom line for Brierly is that while it's found results hard to come by, it's doing a hell of a lot right.

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