JONTY: Alright boys, our second round back of two-day cricket. Marcus, we’ll start the way we always do, with best action.
MARCUS: My best action that I saw was the opening spell from Jarrod Goodes in Berwick’s clash with St Mary’s. Berwick had been dismissed for just 129 and an upset brewed, but Goodes grabbed three of the first four scalps to make sure his side are right in the contest. He took 3/16 and was exactly what his side needed. They’re now in a great position to pull off the win next week.
DAVE: I thought I would go down and watch Clyde and Devon Meadows, two teams which will struggle to make finals this year. There were no highlights in the first 20 overs of that game. With a strong wind blowing from one end, you had the quickies bowling from one end and a couple of slowies from the other but nothing really happened. One bloke was three from 39; I thought I would enjoy watching two-day cricket again but I didn’t enjoy the early contest. So I jumped in the car and watched Cardinia v Tooradin and my best action was there. Travis Weller, in his first 30 balls on the weekend, he only got scored off once. A right-arm offie bowling with the wind, and the Tooradin openers were just going step-block, step-block, leave. A wicket fell and Mick Sweeney came out to bat and the battle was fascinating. I went side on and Trav Weller was changing his pace, Sweeney was using his feet, it was just a really good battle between bat and ball. That was my best action.
MARCUS: This is quickly starting to become ‘Let’s Talk Trav Weller’ isn’t it?
JONTY: How many did Mick end up with?
DAVE: Only 19, but I just loved that he came to the crease and immediately it was a different game. If Weller bowled a bad ball, it was going to be despatched whereas previously it was just being blocked. I really enjoyed the contest and it looked like both players did as well.
JONTY: Very good. I saw parts of three games of cricket on the weekend. My best action comes from Cranbourne v Parkfield. Parkfield was right on top of Cranbourne early, 6/90 when I arrived. Harsaroup Singh and Jakeb Thomas came together and it looked like Parkfield would run through them and Cranbourne, gallant in recent weeks, would get a reality check. But those two players came together and batted exceptionally. If I was to boil it down to one shot, Jakeb Thomas, a lower-order batter, who hasn’t had much of a go since arriving at Cranbourne, absolutely crisply hits the Parkfield captain Stephen Cannon for four. It was one bounce to the mid-wicket boundary, a clipping on-drive. He ended up making a half-century and that shot was outstanding and indicative of their fearless partnership which helped Cranbourne to 274.
THE BIG SHOW
JONTY: Glenn Maxwell – I was watching in absolute admiration and fascination when he got a century off 40 balls last week against Netherlands. I said at the time, and I still say that now, it’s the best innings of cricket I’ve seen. For you boys, it got me thinking, who are the entertainers of your competitions.
DAVE: Chris Bright, Kooweerup opener. He goes at a strike rate of well over 100 normally. In the grand final last year he made 66 off 144 balls to show he can do it the other way too. Brad Butler; I reckon I talk about Brad during the footy season: he’s an excitement machine who kicks goals, takes bounces and species. And in cricket, he’s the fastest bowler in the competition and the furthest hitter. The bloke has talent in anything he does. I reckon if he did high jump, he’d make the Olympics. He has these explosive moments in any sport he plays. And Dale Tormey, the Pakenham captain made 100 on the weekend. He was pulling the opening bowler for six. He hit three sixes on Saturday off quick bowlers. He’s devastating when he gets going. I watched him three weeks ago and he struggled, then he comes out two weeks later and is at his magnificent best.
JONTY: He’s a name I always hear talked about around the traps in my comps.
DAVE: He was in the Renegades squad a couple of years ago. If his feet are moving and he’s switched on, you know he’ll be in for something special…it’s almost always up to him what happens.
JONTY: You can say the same thing about Maxwell in some ways. Some days he tries to do too much too early and opens himself up before doing damage. Marcus?
MARCUS: Jordan Wyatt’s ability to switch gears with the bat is sensational. He made runs a few times last year when all the other batters in the side struggled. Down at Park Oval against Buckley Ridges, he made 60-odd when no-one else went past 50. Jordan Hammond, a Wookey Medal winner when I think he was 24 or 25. Captain of an experienced Hallam Kalora Park outfit and took 5/54 including the key wickets of Ryan Quirk and Jordan Wyatt on Saturday. He’s a quality cricketer and his performance in a losing preliminary final last year with the ball was brilliant. Jeevan Mendis, last year’s Wookey Medal winner, he bowled 24 overs on Saturday. That’s going to be a real weapon for Narre South as one of the leading spin bowlers in the competition alongside Jarryd Straker. His credentials speak for themselves. There’s a real fear factor about him too. And one of your favourites, Jonty: Callan Tout. I saw him only once this season but his hostility and ability to hurry up batters impressed me.
DAVE: Beacy boy isn’t he?
JONTY: Yep. I’ll give you four players. Nick Suppree, he’s the Coomoora coach this year, missing the first part of the season with an ACL injury, but he’ll be back in the second half of the season. They’ll go to another level when he comes back because his ability to go once he’s seen 10 or 15 balls is sensational. I saw him hit a century last year at better than a run a ball which isn’t something you see too often in park cricket. Triyan De Silva, a HSD boy who can do it with both bat and ball. He’s really exciting to watch and when he’s on, you feel like something could happen any ball. And with the bat, batting in the middle he guided his team home a few times last year. Jackson Marie, last week I saw him and I talked about him just before. He’s a Berwick Springs Titans boy and he hit 76 off 90. The boundary count in that innings wouldn’t do justice to how well he actually hit the ball. He seemed to have a knack of finding the fielders, but he still went at a strike rate of 85. His ability to find the middle of the bat when no-one else could for either team was impressive. And Harsaroup Singh has a huge role to play for Cranbourne. He has a century and half century already this year after emerging last season. This looks to be his coming of age year.
INAUGURATING CLUBS
JONTY: We’ll move on to the next topic. What are the important aspects that start-up clubs need to focus on when starting out. Community clubs have to deal with a lot and there is a great separation between the ones who do it well and the ones who don’t. Cardinia Storm Hockey Club established earlier this year and one thing they’ve done really well, as we’ve both noted at different times, Dave, is they’ve put the right people in the right positions and the club seems to be building at a linear but very quick rate as well. What are the things, Marcus, clubs have to prioritise if they want sustainable growth?
MARCUS: I’m going to look at Berwick Springs footy club for this one. They formed at the start of 2020. They’ve only played two full seasons of footy and they’re already considered one of the strongest clubs in the Outer East competition. A big tick for them is starting in a massive growth corridor, similar to Cardinia Storm.
JONTY: Yeah, that’s certainly something Cardinia Storm has talked about.
MARCUS: There’s a big catchment to draw from. They had good leaders and strong heads in senior positions like Rod Benstead as senior coach and Ashley Allison as president to kick-start them. But they also built their side to be competitive pretty early. They have good young key-position players in Riley Hillman.
JONTY: He scored 69 on the weekend.
MARCUS: He’s team of the year at half-back two years in a row and Braydn Hoewel at the other end of the ground. And strong leaders like Brodie Worland down back as their captain, and they’ve added experience in two or three years alongside the young, quality guys in Hayden Stagg and Chris Johnson. Even the clubs in premier division have commented on how impressive they’ve been with their very deliberate structure and the results have shown. They made a grand final in their second full season and they’re off to premier next year.
JONTY: Good summary. Dave?
DAVE: For me, if I was building a sporting club from scratch, the first thing I would do is have a mission statement, what are we trying to achieve from day one. It might be to ‘Have Fun’ or ‘Treat people with respect’. Simple things like that and I would hang it above the door people walk through the most every day. Then people are reminded constantly what you’re there for. Pakenham and Korumburra-Bena have both been through tough times and they’re both big towns but that doesn’t matter, you need the right one or two people in the right positions to make it successful. Little towns like Cora Lynn have Terry Dillon, Andrew Bergmeier, president for 20 years; lead the way with the culture of the place. If they didn’t have the right people, it would fall apart in one year. Having the right people at the helm is critical.
MARCUS: If LTS had a mission statement, what would it be?
LONG, AWKWARD PAUSE
DAVE: That means we’ve got a problem if we don’t know the answer…a cultural one. (Boys Laugh)
JONTY: A big thing for me is that people in those important positions need a strong local network to draw people to the club initially because if you don’t have that, it will be difficult to develop. You can’t rely on buying players to be competitive because that’s where culture can breakdown. You also need strong junior development programs in place so people want to stay and the future of the club is taken care of. It allows you to build the club from within.
DAVE: Well said. Hey boys, we have a special guest with us today, too. Alex, who’s doing work experience with us this week, welcome mate. Tell us what you do for sport.
ALEX: I play soccer; I’ve been playing for a long time, for Chelsea Soccer Club. I play centre-back but they moved me into the midfield this year.
DAVE: What have you done that’s special? Marcus has won futsal grand finals, what’s your claim to fame in sport?
ALEX: We kept Melbourne City to just a 1-0 loss in the NPL U15s when I played for Mornington earlier this season. We defended pretty much all game and played well. We should’ve got a point out of the game. It was at the start of the year coming off a big win against Dandy City and we played pretty well, I’d like to say we locked up their attackers.
MARCUS: With you at the heart of the defence?
DAVE: The key is not to talk yourself down. You dominated the defensive unit, yeah?
ALEX: I’d like to say that, yes.
