Tara Murray
New Taylors Lakes captain-coach Alex Deuchar’s first impression of the club left a lasting impact and eventually led him to join Victorian Sub-District Cricket Association club.
Deuchar joined the club in the off-season having been playing in Victorian Premier Cricket with Kingston-Hawthorn in recent years.
Deuchar said there was something about the Lions that made him want to join the club.
“It’s really exciting to be honest,” he said.
“It’s nice to be back in Subbies… I decided I liked this competition and I wanted to go back and take on a head coaching role.
“I played against Taylors Lakes in their first year of the competition and wondered how they had gone since.”
Deuchar said conversations with the club had focused around looking to develop the young core group of players they already had at the club.
He said the off-field side of things had been tracking really nicely, now they wanted to start to make inroads on the field.
“They’re keen to build with what they have, homegrown talent,” he said.
“Everyone has spoken about the off-field camaraderie and developing the playing stuff. There’s so many home grown players who live within 10 minutes.
“They spend a lot of time together.”
Deuchar will add to the on field stocks, along with a few key recruits to support the existing playing group.
Former junior Trent Waring, who still lives in the area, returns having been playing with Greenvale Kangaroos in premier cricket.
Another former junior George Sakkas returns from Footscray, Buddika Janith comes across Springvale, while Kadin Jackson follows Deucher across from Kingstown-Hawthorn.
Deuchar said they wanted to add some experience to help the team in close matches. They lost many of those matches last season, when they failed to win a match.
“Our bowling is strong, hopefully the batters will fire,” he said.
“It’s been a big focus in the pre-season, we will probably look to play the extra batter as we have a number of all-rounders.
“We’ve recruited some guys with experience, who have played a bit of cricket and know how to win.”
The Lions are set to get their season underway on Saturday against Spotswood in the south-west division.
Deuchar said they were trying not to set expectations on where they might finish.
“We want to play a real positive brand of cricket and we will hopefully get some wins.
“It will be a foundation year.”
