Tara Murray
Keilor is hoping another pre-season under the belt will help it produce a more consistent Victorian Turf Cricket Association senior division season.
Keilor finished second bottom last season, but the closeness of the competition meant it was still in contention for finals heading into the final round of the season.
Coach Duncan Harrison said they would stick with a pretty similar list for the upcoming season.
He said that they’d had a really good pre-season.
“We’ve had a good solid preparation,” he said. “There’s a nice enjoyment around the group.
“The list is pretty similar. We’ve lost Alfie Miles who has gone to premier cricket which is the goal.
“We’ve brought in an Englishman, Nick Taylor, who played at Greenvale last year, and a young Indian.”
Harrison said they felt last season they had the right players, they just didn’t put it together consistently enough.
Keilor won just four games for the season.
“We were disappointed last year,” he said. “We probably coughed up a few games we should not have.
“The ladder doesn’t lie. We need to be a bit more consistent and that has been the focus throughout the pre-season.”
Harrison said having such a young core it was always going to take some time to put it all together.
He said they were hoping that it could be this season.
“We’ve talked about that group of six or seven young kids and getting 30 or 40 games into them,” he said.
“They’ve got that now. Matthew Gaskett won the VTCA medal and his improvement was amazing.
“Hopefully we’ll have one or two similar to him this year.”
Gaskett was one of two Keilor players to head over to England in the off season to continue to play cricket.
Another massive experience for many of the group, was a trip the club made to Sri Lanka in April.
“We played 10 games of cricket in Sri Lanka,” Harrison said. “It was really good for the development of the players.
“We had a couple in the UK as well. It’s helped them mature as people and improve their games.”
Keilor season is set to get underway on October 7.
Harrison said the group had set their target on playing finals this season.
“Top four,” he said about their aims. “I don’t feel like it was a talent thing last year.
“We were disappointed we didn’t make the four last year. We’re aiming to play finals and would be disappointed if we didn’t achieve it.”
Meanwhile on the women’s side of things, it’s been a tough off season with it seeming like the club wouldn’t get a team up at one stage.
Harrison said they lost about eight players to Victorian Premier Cricket.
He said it had been a real challenge to get where they are ahead of the season.
“We will have a young side, not too dissimilar to last year.” he said.
“We had a good young team hoping to play some games on turf and they made grand final. We’ll see how we go.”
