Season not so Dandy

DANDENONG coach Warren Ayres says he will remember 2008-09 as ‘a season of lost opportunities.’
The Panthers coach, who watched his charges miss the finals for the first time since 2003, last week admitted his talented team had underachieved.
“There’s no doubt that a lot of (the players) would be feeling that they underachieved, both individually and as a team,” he reflected. But hopefully they’ll be better for it, and next year they’ll be a little more focused.”
Dandenong, which reached the semi-final in 2007-08, finished in eleventh spot this summer – eight points outside the finals bracket.
And while Ayres was reluctant to make excuses, he would have had plenty at his disposal. Not for the horrendous 0-4 start or the inexplicable last-round loss to Casey-South Melbourne, but for the period in between.
First, explosive young opener and Bushrangers squad member Kumar Sarna pulled the pin after just five games to return to India.
Then, after bouncing back with a couple of wins, the Panthers were denied likely victories by rains in rounds seven and nine.
Perhaps, the biggest blow came in early January, when 18-year-old quick James Pattinson was again sidelined by a stress fracture in his back.
Pattinson’s older brother, Darren, and right-arm seamer Brent Fairbanks also had their injury issues, while Test sensation Peter Siddle suited up just once – at Monash University in December – and ended up watching his teammates bat for the entire day.
The many distractions made it a tough summer in the pavilion for the recently-retired Ayres.
“If something could go wrong, it seemed to for the club this season,” he said.“But we really shouldn’t make excuses.”
For all the potential excuses, many Panthers still fell short of their own expectations.
All-rounders Dave Newman and Matt Chasemore and wicketkeeper Ricky Damiano all struggled with the bat, and skipper Darren Dempsey was frustrated by his own inability to produce the match-winning innings – barring a couple of Twenty20 explosions.
Openers Brett Forsyth and Tom Donnell registered Dandenong’s only two tons of the season on the same afternoon.
The Panthers pace attack also lacked the penetration of recent summers.
Paul Boraston led the way with 16 wickets, six less than his 2007-08 haul, while Fairbanks, Newman and James Nanopoulos snared 15 apiece.
But as Ayres noted, ‘it wasn’t all bleak’ for the Panthers.
Nanopoulos, playing his first full season in the ones, proved to be a damaging and a reliable middle-order contributor with the bat, and his crafty medium-pacers were constantly underestimated by opposing batsmen.
Ayres was also pleased with Forsyth’s ‘solid’ season, in which he consolidated the reputation he built in a breakout 2007-08 season.
He found a willing partner in Tom Donnell after Sarna’s departure, and both put a high value on their wickets.
Dandenong also blooded 16-year-old quicks James Wilcock and Jackson Coleman with some success.
“We’ll hear a lot more from them,” he said.
Ayres expects the improvement to come from that new guard – includ-ing Forsyth and Nanopoulos, who are just 20 – and some shrewd recruiting over the winter.
He’s looking for a top-class spinner to add some variety to the Panthers’ attack, and the 43-year-old is also entertaining the idea of making a comeback next season.
“I just think that if I’m at the game, it’s much easier to play,” he said. “I feel helpless (looking on) and it’s become quite frustrating.”
That will be one of many tough decisions to be made by the Panthers hierarchy this winter.