By Mikayla van Loon
Cricket season is back and Montrose Cricket Club are out to win after a strong and normal preseason prepared them for the 2022-23 season.
“Expectations are always high. We’ve got six men’s sides and a women’s side from a senior point of view. Our 1st XI, two seasons ago, played off in the grand final and last season, we missed out on finals by one game,” club president Damian Ford said.
“So we’re very passionate and motivated to win that top flag, the Trollope flag. We haven’t won a top grade flag for 40 odd years, so that’s definitely a motivation.”
Although the competition has started off bumpy due to weather cancellations of the lower grades, Mr Ford said the firsts, seconds and thirds have all been able to play consecutive games.
“The top three grades actually played both weeks, which has been good. Our firsts are one and one, our seconds are two and zero and our thirds, unfortunately, are zero and three,” he said.
The thirds, however, are playing in the premier competition against 2nd XI teams after winning four grand finals in a row.
“We’re up for the challenge but hopefully we can get some more numbers back in our top grades and really push hard in that 3rd XI because we know we’re good enough at that level,” Mr Ford said.
The women’s team began the season with a loss but only in its second full year of play Mr Ford said “we’re starting from scratch so things take time” and he’s keen to make the “women’s program vibrant and successful”.
With junior girls cricket ingrained at the club, Mr Ford said creating that pathway for women to continue at Montrose has been important but participation numbers in the women’s side haven’t been as strong as hoped.
“It’s great there’s more teams. Mooroolbark, Kilsyth, Chirnside, Wandin and Montrose, we’ve all got a women’s side now.
“It is hard to make sure that we’ve got the right amount of numbers because the pool of participants is not as great. So it is good and we’re motivated to keep working.”
Lots of younger players have joined the ranks across the board at Montrose Cricket Club and Mr Ford said he is looking forward to seeing them develop as key members of the teams.
“We’ve got a lot of young kids, so between the ages of 17 and 22, in our top couple of grades, so I’m really excited to see how they make the transition from second level premieres last year, and some of them are going to be filtered into our, into our 1st XI, if not already.
“So I’m just excited to see if we can get that organic growth and improvement out of those younger kids that have won a premiership in our second level last season and see if they can translate that into the first level and help our firsts win.”
Complementing the existing players is Croydon North recruit Shane Findlay and English import Alfie Cooper who is the most recent to join the club.
“The vibe around the group has been really exciting. New players coming in always contribute to that as well.
“So we’re pretty positive about our first eight to 10 weeks of preseason working on the cricket side so hopefully we can translate that into some results across the board.”
