Earl Byrne is eager to fulfil his two-year coaching stint with the Sunshine Eagles despite a horror first season.
The Eagles won just two matches in Baseball Victoria Summer League division 1, which led to last place and relegation.
Now Byrne wants to lead the Eagles’ rejuvenation, although his future is in the hands of the club’s hierarchy.
“They did say at the start of the year that it would be for two years,” he said
. “Like anything, it can change and it depends on whether they were happy with me this year.”
Byrne’s previous coaching job was to start a rebuild at the Werribee Giants, where he blooded several young players who are now at the core of a finals-bound division 2 side.
But the task at the Eagles was different, because Byrne inherited an ageing list minus a number of its former stars.
He said it was important to “concentrate on what you do have and not what you don’t have” but it’s hard to look past the big names not available.
Brothers Shaun and Scott Moore and level-elite starting pitcher Rory Meddick were massive voids, while pitcher Adam Irons, who formed a lethal 1-2 combo with Meddick last summer, could not deliver the same work rate on the mound because of wear and tear.
“That’s a big chunk out of your side,” Byrne said. “It’s kind of hurt us a fair bit.”
The fors and against makes for ugly reading for Eagles supporters . . . the offence is blunt and the defence is the leakiest in the league.
Import starting pitcher Chris Prokupek had a slow start but got stronger as the season wore on.
For all of Prokupek’s best efforts, the American did not get the run support needed to make a splash in the wins column.
“He threw about 100 innings, so he did a power of work and was at all trainings and every game,” Byrne said.
“There were a lot of games he probably should’ve won and I was getting seven solid innings out of him.
“We just didn’t give him the run production he needed, which hurt his win-loss ratio.”
With youth desperately needed in the Eagles line-up, Byrne turned to teenagers Alister Lovelock and Aaron Wallis-Taylor with good results, although Lovelock’s story was a bitter-sweet one.
He made the lead-off spot his own, hit in the vicinity of .300 and was energetic at shortstop, but snapped his collarbone in the field late in the season.
“I’m not sure how long the rehab is for that, but it would have to be 12 months you’d think,” Byrne said.
Matt Davis was the pick of the Eagles batters with one-third of the team’s runs
“He scored 22 runs for us and batted close to .300, which is decent in first division baseball,” Byrne said.
While the wins were as rare as hens’ teeth, Byrne insists he never lost the players and is keen to work with them again next summer.
“The boys have stuck by me all the way,” he said. “I haven’t heard too much negativity and they always went into games thinking they were a chance to win.
“We’re just missing a couple of quality bone-fide division one players.”
