By Marcus Uhe
Jarrod Goodes is “very excited” at the prospect of donning the baggy blue again at Berwick Cricket Club this season after missing the 2022-23 campaign through injury, as he and a number of returning faces look to elevate Berwick to another successful era.
Goodes, along with fellow premiership players Corey Bevan and Matthew Robertson, are coming back to the Bear cave, with the club looking to make-amends for a disappointing 2022-23 summer in which it did not qualify for finals action, despite playing in a preliminary final the season before.
Having recovered from a complex upper body injury, Goodes said that his intention was always to return to the playing field when capable, and is looking forward to what lies ahead.
“At the club we identified that we didn’t have a great year last year but we identified a few reasons for it,” Goodes said.
“One of the things was, we wanted to get as many good Berwick people back to the club as we could.
“Corey is one of those, ‘Robbo’ (Robertson) ended up playing the twos towards the end of year but he wasn’t really training a lot, he was just coming down for a hit, but wanted to be fair-dinkum again this year.
“We’re trying to call a number of past players to get them back involved at the club again, it’s a good place to start, and then build on the team we had from last year.
“But (it’s) more around, getting some quality people in, enjoying our cricket again and being hard to play against.
“That’s the bit we sort of went away from last year.”
Star wicketkeeper-batter Jordan Cleland and last season’s leading run-scorer Jake Hancock are both sticking with the club, to be led by once again by Brad James, who will have a number of assistants to lend a hand with the coaching duties.
Batters James Wilcock and Damith Mapa Ralalage, and leg-spinner Riley Siwes have all departed the club, while the playing futures of Andrew Perrin and Matthew Chasemore at Berwick are yet to be finalised.
“We’re going to miss Mapa and Wilcock for sure, but it just gives opportunities for others.
“We didn’t want to go out and search for high-profile players, we just wanted to fill those gaps with what we’ve got within, try to develop our younger players a bit more, put more of a focus on that, and then good quality Berwick people in the team to make us a bit harder to play against.
“I think that will go a long way to us enjoying our cricket a lot more and being competitive.”
Having been sidelined for nearly 12 months and with preseason on the horizon, the goal is evident for those involved at the club, seeking to dethrone Springvale South’s crown as back-to-back premiers.
“We want to get our Turf 1 (team) back to where they should be, and that’s in and around the finals hunt,” Goodes explained.
“We’ve got some good people back involved to make that happen.
“I’m very much looking forward to it.
“We’ll see how the body copes with it all, and then it’ll be the old, one week at a time.”
