Tathra Cricket Club president Adam Blacka says the Sea Eagles have lost a few key players, but will fill the void with rising players coming out of the junior ranks.
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“We are just chasing up the last three or four players to get our two teams for the launch,” Blacka said.
“We’ve had a few blokes retire, while a few have left to join the ranks at Bega.
“But we’ve got a few good 16-year-olds coming through and they’ll hopefully fill some of those senior roles.”
Two of the key names coming up the ranks are Lachlan Trickey, who is a top order batsmen that the Eagles are hoping to shape into the opener role and left-arm quick bowler Morgan McCoy.
“Morgan will hopefully fill the gap left by Jack Matthews and open the bowling for us,” Blacka said.
However, the Tathra club has also been busy in the nets with training runs and there are two more players likely to get a top grade spot out of their efforts, Blacka said.
“Adam Chett and Matthew Potter are looking really good in the nets, they're two new players, but the way they’re training they’ll probably fit into the first division side,” he said.
Tathra will be the only club housing two seniors sides – one in the first division and one in the second division.
Eden has both, but it’s second division is a combined outfit with Mallacoota.
Blacka said the first division Tathra outfit would maintain a core of its returning players, but were still keen to build a “key support batsman that can hold the crease.”
He said the team had some big hitters in the likes of Chris Dwyer, Pete Bennett and Ben O’Reilly to cover “that top-middle order pretty well”, but wanted a reliable player to keep the singles rolling across the innings.
“It’s all the one-day shorter format stuff, there will be no two-day section of play this year so there is a lot more of that high intensity hitting,” he said.
Blacka believes that the South Eurobodalla Pirates are one of the teams to watch as the season progresses.
“They’ve got Simon Mackie back in for them, he’s a very handy all-rounder that used to play for us – and they’ve got about four blokes going into the rep side,” he said.
“They’re looking pretty good so far.”
Blacka also praised the Bermagui side as a title contender after stepping up from B grade in the previous combined draw.
“They’ve put their hands up to play A grade and now they’re right up there,” he said.
The Sea Eagles will host the Pirates in Saturday’s season opener at Lawrence Park from 1pm on Saturday.
“We’ve got them at home and Saturday and it should be a good one at Tathra,” the club president said.
The second division Tathra side will be in Bega to meet the combined Eden Mallacoota outfit from 1pm.