By Renee Wood
Yarra Glen Cricket Club celebrated its season launch on Saturday 10 September, seeing a great turn out of players across entry level, juniors and seniors.
Secretary Jordan Bain said it’s great to see strong community support after a tough couple of years as the committee rebuilds the club’s foundations.
“Some key people have done some exceptionally good work to get it to where it is today and there’s a really bright future ahead for the club,” Mr Bain said.
“So having the season launches it signifies that the club is in a really good position.”
Their hoping to have three senior teams, one up from previous years, and juniors competing from Cricket Blasters up to under 16s.
“You need to have a really healthy mix of juniors right from foundation level with the cricket blasters and under 10s. It’s so important to get kids exposed to cricket before you know the age of 12,” he said.
“If you don’t have junior cricketers coming through, then the outlook for your senior sides can be really significantly impacted.”
Female participation is another area the club is looking to focus on, with girls making up 40 per cent of the players joining the blasters foundation group.
One women has also joined the seniors in a mixed team and Mr Bain said the player will help to engage younger girls and women to join in other ways.
Following the launch, training will continue with seniors meeting Tuesdays and Thursdays evenings and juniors Tuesdays and Wednesdays. New recruits are always welcome.
“We’re the only club essentially in the whole league that has an indoor training facility, so we can train rain, hail or shine with an indoor facility, whereas a lot of clubs rely on outdoor nets at their grounds, which is if it’s impacted by weather you can’t train.”
Under 16s are also joining some of the senior training sessions to bridge the gap for the young players as they look ahead to senior competitions.
The club’s target for the season ahead is to hold a healthy mix of numbers across all age ranges for the season and creating opportunities for players at various levels of experience.
“We really want to make sure that as part of that we want it to be fun… And we’re really focused on making sure that family and mateship are really taken into account for the season.
“With those sorts of values and a high level of respect for everyone in the community, that just creates a really good atmosphere where people want to be around it.”
