By Mikayla van Loon
After what was a tough year of player losses at Mount Evelyn Cricket Club, president Tim Heaphy is confident the 2022-23 season will shape up to be a good one on all fronts.
“We’ve shaped up quite well, after a tough year last year, with a number of people leaving the year prior,” he said.
“In saying that we were still, in the lower grades, able to win a premiership. So while it wasn’t our top tier teams last season, this year we’ve got a few of the older Mount Evelyn players back and a new captain coach which has garnered quite a bit of interest from both the young guys and the old guys.”
This year Mount Evelyn will be fielding four teams in the Ringwood and District Cricket Association, two in the premier competition and two in the lower grades.
With a coaching group of Troy Hancock, Brad Jones and Chris Morrow, Mr Heaphy said the club is excited and has been feeling very positive at weekly training sessions.
“The feeling amongst the young guys and the older guys is good. It’s positive. At training we’ve had great numbers even in the preseason indoor training,” he said.
“So they’re getting around high 20s to 30 players and early preseason training is something we haven’t had for many years so there’s a good vibe around the club.”
Only the premier grades have been able to play so far in the last two weeks because of the condition of local cricket grounds due to rain.
“We’re hoping the dumping of rain [over the next few days] doesn’t affect the grounds again. The council’s have had a bit of a battle getting the grounds up and going.”
Mount Evelyn Cricket Club has also been challenged for the last two seasons without proper club rooms as the rebuilding continues.
“We’re definitely looking forward to next season and having rooms because it’s been a big challenge, financially and socially, being able to have functions or anything onsite and just getting the guys together on Thursdays for dinner or something like that.”
Mr Heaphy said for the club, as much as they would like to win as many games as possible, he would like to see the teams having fun, enjoying the game of cricket and building up again after a tough 2021-22 season.
“Especially for our ones after last year which was really battling for the guys, it was a very young side, there was a number of guys thrust into the firsts,” he said.
“This year we’re looking forward to being very competitive, which I believe we will be and having fun and whether you win or lose, as long as they are a good match, you just want to be competitive.”
