By Marcus Uhe
First-year senior coach Tom Donnell is yet to finalise his report cards for Dandenong’s Premier Cricket season, declaring that there’s plenty to play for in the final few weeks of the home-and-away campaign.
With three rounds remaining before finals, Donnell’s Panthers sit 13th on the table, 10 points back of St Kilda in eighth place, one of three sides tied on 37 points.
Finals remain an outside chance for his young squad, as the toll of a full season on players like Noah Hurley, Ollie Jenkins and Vishwa Ramkumar show more and more signs of impact on young legs.
Saturday’s heartbreaking one-wicket loss to Melbourne University, a game mired in ebbs and flows that the Panthers ultimately couldn’t secure despite having the upper hand in the dying stages, another tool of growth in a season of learnings.
Having started the season with two wins from three matches, equalling their total from a dismal 2022/23 that saw significant changes at Shepley, there’s a chance that such a bright start will be cast aside if they peter-out in the final few weeks.
It’s a judgement call that Donnell will determine in due course.
“If we can finish the season strongly and maybe win two of the three, we might see it as close to a pass mark,” he said.
“But if we taper-off and win one of the three, I think that would be disappointing.
“It’s always really tight; it you said to me at the start of the season that we’d be a chance of making the finals with three games left, I definitely would have taken that.
“I think a lot will depend on the last few games and how we can finish, whether we give the season a tick or a cross.”
The fluctuations in Saturday’s contest, he attributed to the side’s youth, were onset by a poor batting display putting the Panthers behind the eight-ball after batting first.
Close wins against Essendon and Prahran, and losses against the Students and against Frankston, offering ample development opportunities for a squad of cricketing students eager to learn from Donnell and evergreen Brett Forsyth.
But the key in Donnell’s eyes is the lack of blowout losses and the ability to remain in contests for long periods of time, what he considers to be one of the biggest improvements from last season.
“We were coming from quite a way back, going back to last year,” he explained.
“We were convincingly beaten quite a few times, but we haven’t been convincingly beaten this season.
“Maybe a couple of the T20s that may have gotten away from us a little bit, but in all the other games we’ve been in the game for a lot of it.
“We’re a lot more competitive this year, we’re in the game for a lot longer.
“That’s what I mean with the inexperience, it’s showing out on those games with those instances.
“Hopefully that’s an improvement going forward that we’re just going to keep getting better and better at, hopefully, going into these last few games and looking ahead to next season.”
Winnable games at home against Camberwell and Greenvale are split by a trip to Geelong to face the high-flying Cats in the run home, leaving the door ajar to sneak into the eight.
Whether the Panthers can take the opportunity remains to be seen, but the fact that they’re even in the hunt is a credit to Donnell’s success in his first year at the helm.
