Omar Butterfield felt that his Devonshire Cougars side were the orchestrators of their own downfall in their 3-0 defeat by PHC Zebras in the Dudley Eve Trophy Final on Sunday.

“All respect to PHC for winning the game ... but we gave it to them,” Butterfield, the Cougars coach, told The Royal Gazette. “We gave it away to them too easy and I am not pleased with that.

“Our performance was poor and as the coach I take responsibility for it. You can’t play a game with too many players off. When you have four or five players off of their game against a good side like PHC, you are going to struggle.”

Cecoy Robinson, the Zebras captain, hailed his team’s dominant display at Somerset Cricket Club at the weekend.

Robinson opened the scoring with a clinical finish before Marco Warren added two more to secure the Zebras’ second Dudley Eve title in three seasons after brushing aside a Cougars side who never showed up for the big occasion.

“Credit to the boys, they played well today,” Robinson said. “We were motivated. We know what it takes to win and have been here before, so we just wanted to make sure we got over the line.”

PHC’s victory avenged defeat by Cougars in the final 12 months ago; not that it mattered to Robinson.

“They got the better of us twice last year in cup finals [Dudley Eve Trophy and Friendship Trophy],” he said. “But we didn’t even think about that.

“We let that go, so that’s gone and we are a better team this year. We just had to play to what we know and get the job done like how we did today.”

Robinson said his team’s strategy paid off.

“We pushed the tempo and made sure we came out the blocks very firm,” he said. “We played one half at a time and once we came out of the blocks, pushing the tempo and we went ahead with the goal I scored, we were able to keep the momentum going.

“At half-time we told ourselves we can’t drop the tempo and 2-0 is not enough to sit on, so we had to make sure we came out the same way we started.”

Warren was a thorn in Cougars’ side with his dribbling, precision passing and clinical finishing.

“With someone like Marco on your side, you can’t go wrong,” Robinson said.