By David Nagel
TOORADIN
Captain: Callum O’Hare
Last Season: First – Premiers
Most Runs: Callum O’Hare (573 at 47.75); Tom Hussey (434 at 33.38)
Most Wickets: Kallan Braid-Ball (23 at 23.96); Russell Lehman (21 at 20.90)
In: None.
Out: Steve Hammill (Retired).
Confidence is slowly building for Tooradin captain Cal O’Hare as his Seagulls prepare for their first top-flight premiership defence in nine years.
The Gulls have been perennial finalists for the best part of a decade, but finally got the ultimate reward for effort in the premiership decider against Cardinia last season.
A pressurised display, led by a man-of-the-match performance from Russ Lehman, saw the Seagulls capitalise on a dominant performance throughout the course of the season.
Do they have that hunger again?
“It probably hasn’t been our best pre-season if I’m being honest,” O’Hare conceded.
“It is hard to get everyone up and running again once you’ve won it, and there have been a few distractions with the footy (premiership) and the weather as well.
“I was getting a little bit concerned, but the last week or two we’ve got everyone to training and had a couple of really good sessions.
“While we’ve been concerned that we haven’t had a huge pre-season, due to the weather, we know it’s the same for every other team as well.”
The Seagulls will head into the season with largely the same group that tasted the ultimate success earlier this year.
Veteran opening bowler Steve Hammill has retired, in pretty much the only adjustment to their list.
The Gulls did have the opportunity to bring in an international signing, but have stuck with a local contingency in the quest for back-to-back flags.
O’Hare said gun opener Tom Hussey is fit and firing, while several others on the list are set for big seasons.
“Huss is really hungry and hitting the ball nicely in the nets, and he had an up and down season last year, so watch out for him,” he said.
“Dylan Sutton has had a huge pre-season, and is hitting the bat a yard quicker than last year, and BJ (Ben Parrott) probably hasn’t put a cricket bat down since last year, so he’s hitting them nicely as well.
“KBB (Kallan Braid-Ball) has had the ball on a string as well, so there are some really positive signs.”
The reigning premiership skipper believes the Seagulls will be perfectly suited by the return of two-day cricket this season.
“I think two-day cricket could still suit us, we proved last year that we can bat the whole way down…get 30 or 40 all the way down to 10,” he said.
“Our depth really helped us last year and hopefully that will happen again.
“But we haven’t done it (two-day cricket) for a few years, so we’ll see how things play out.”
O’Hare said the time was now right to sit his side down and set some high-level goals for the season.
“We’ll do that this week and have a chat about how we want to go about it and things like that, but it’s been hard, with every second session being washed out, so it’s been very limited as to what we can do.
“We just need to trust each other and make sure we got the job done.”
The Seagulls travel to Clyde this week to take on a rejuvenated Cougars line up.
Former Sri Lankan Test player Michael Vandort will line up in the green and gold for the first time, with Englishman James North and speed-machine Neranjana Wanniarachchi amongst the Cougars other key signings.
