Cape Town - Western Province had been on a dream run heading into Sunday's One-Day Cup clash against the Titans at Newlands.
They had won two consecutive four-day games - both in excess off an innings - and been on a three-match winning streak in the longer white-ball format.
However, they knew that after years in the doldrums that this resurgence would only really start to be taken seriously around the rest of the country if they overcame their arch-rivals from up north.
Wayne Parnell's team duly delivered the answer with a seven-wicket thrashing of the Titans to entrench Province's position at the top of the table. Equally, they maintained their unbeaten record after four matches.
The fact it was orchestrated by Titans old boy Tony de Zorzi would only have sweetened the victory even more.
De Zorzi made the surprise move down to Cape Town a few seasons back and the stylish left-hander is now reaping the rewards. After initially working with former Proteas batter Ashwell Prince in his guise as Cape Cobras coach and now WP mentor Salieg Nackerdien, De Zorzi has taken his game to the next level and should be a genuine candidate when the next Proteas squad across formats is selected.
Having crushed 163 and 304 not out in the red-ball competition, De Zorzi added another unbeaten 88 to his 133 last week to comfortably take WP home by seven wickets.
"I think one day cricket is nice if you open the batting because I think it's a bit of everything so obviously you want to be attacking, the ball is going to move around, Junior Dala was getting it to shape, Aya Gqamane as well, everything comes with all sorts of skills and being able to know and identify which skills must be used at which time and I think that's pretty much it for me," De Zorzi said of his current run spree.
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De Zorzi, though, would be the first to admit that the WP batters' job is being a lot easier by their splendid bowling unit.
On Sunday, WP were only required to chase down 158 after the home team's bowlers once against delivered a superb performance after the Titans elected to bat.
Nandre Burger (3/21) was back in the starting XI after recovering from a slight heel injury that saw him the past two games. Burger, though, did not miss a beat as he roared through the Titans top-order by picking up both openers Jiveshan Pillay and the potentially dangerous Dewald Brevis in his first spell.
The left-arm seamer received solid support from all-rounders George Linde (3/46), Mihlali Mpongwana (2/24) and Tshepo Moreki (2/22).
"I can't pinpoint one specific thing or two or three specific things, I just think obviously it's quite nice that we've come into the tournament in some sort of form so just trying to ride that wave and or use that momentum because we have a really good side it's easy to just play good cricket," he said after the game.
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Cricket SA 1-Day Cup brief scores
Titans: 157 all out (Bosch 36*, Ferreira 30, Burger 3/21, Linde 3/46, Mpongwana 2/24, Moreki 2/22.
WP: 158/3 (De Zorzi 88*, Vallie 30, Kaplan 22*, Dala 1/23)