So Near, Yet So Far Again
There is a particular kind of hurt that comes with finishing second when you were leading with two games left to play. Somerset supporters know that feeling all too well. With the County Championship seemingly within their grasp just a fortnight ago — Somerset sat top of the table by four points heading into their penultimate fixture — the dream of a maiden title appeared closer than ever before. Instead, they find themselves in an all-too-familiar position: brilliant, consistent, and ultimately without the one piece of silverware that has eluded them throughout their history. This was their sixth second-place finish in the Championship since 2010, and they remain one of only three counties never to have lifted the trophy.
Yorkshire Deliver the Killing Blow
The decisive blow came at Headingley on 18 September, where Yorkshire inflicted Somerset's second defeat of the season. It proved fatal to their title ambitions, handing the initiative to Warwickshire, who duly clinched the Championship in the final round of matches. For Somerset fans, a second loss to the same county in a single season will sting deeply. But interestingly, the club's own leadership doesn't see that Headingley defeat as the true turning point — they're looking much further back for the moments that cost them the title.
The Middle-Season Collapses That Defined the Campaign
Director of cricket Andy Hurry was candid in his assessment, speaking to BBC 5 Live in the hours before Warwickshire were confirmed as champions. He pointed directly to back-to-back defeats in May — first at home to Yorkshire in Taunton, then away to Glamorgan in Cardiff — as the passages of play that ultimately unravelled their season. In Taunton, Somerset surrendered a commanding 112-run first-innings lead before losing by 75 runs, a capitulation that defies logic in Championship cricket. Things went from bad to worse in Cardiff, where Glamorgan snatched victory by just two wickets — their first Division One home win of the season. "There's been a number of games which we should have won, we didn't get the outcome we were looking for," Hurry said. As a former coach myself, I can tell you that dropping those kinds of matches — when you're in control — rarely goes unpunished over the course of a long season. And so it proved.
Gregory Calls Out the Ruthlessness Gap
Captain Lewis Gregory was equally forthright in his post-season reflections, speaking to BBC Radio Somerset. He acknowledged that the squad had been in an excellent position to finally end the club's long wait for Championship glory, but identified two mid-season games as the defining moments that slipped through their fingers. "There were two games we were in a really good spot — probably didn't show the ruthlessness that we needed, to put us in a position where we were the only team that could win," Gregory said. It's a damning self-assessment, and all the more credible for it. Ruthlessness — the ability to close out matches when you have a team on the ropes — is precisely what separates Championship contenders from Championship winners. For bettors who had Somerset as title favourites at various points this season, those May collapses will look like the moments the odds should have shifted decisively away from them.
Can Somerset Finally Cross the Line?
The honest answer is that Somerset are clearly good enough to win the County Championship. The talent, the structure, and the ambition are all present. But good enough and actually winning are two very different things, and the margins in four-day cricket are brutally unforgiving. The challenge for Hurry, Gregory, and the coaching staff over the winter will be to instil a colder, more clinical edge — the kind that turns promising positions into victories rather than near-misses. Until that happens, Somerset's name will remain conspicuously absent from the roll of honour, and their supporters will continue to dream of what might be next year.
