After beginning their season with a confidence-boosting win over RSL last Saturday, Barham-Koondrook will aim to take their first big scalp when they take on reigning premiers Nyah District this Saturday afternoon.
The Demons also begun their 2024-25 campaign with a victory last weekend, easily accounting for Wandella despite batting first on a rain-affected wicket.
But Saturday promises to be a much sterner test for the red and blue army, which will be without Ben Shadbolt and Joel Walsh for the must-win encounter.
Former premiership captain Dean Harrop will step up to lead Nyah District in Shadbolt’s absence, with the stand-in skipper hoping his team can continue from where they started against the Bombers.
“It’s always important to start any new season well, every team is trying to bank a few wins early and we’re no different,” Harrop told The Guardian this week.
“To bat our 40 overs in our first hit for the year was a credit to our batters and then our bowlers did the job as well.
“We always say we need to bat out our 40 overs to give ourselves a chance, it’s not too often we bat the 40 overs and lose.
“With the ball we have a pretty simple game plan, it’s all about not giving too many runs away by bowling loose.
“We have a few guys who will get a few more overs than normal with ‘Walshy’ (Walsh) and ‘Shaddy’ (Shadbolt) not in the side, it will be an exciting opportunity for those boys that get the opportunity to bowl to try and restrict them (Barham-Koondrook) and take those 10 wickets we aim to take every week.”
The Demons will go into Saturday’s match with a youthful bowling attack, headlined by all-rounder Max Thompson, along with Ethan Curran, Cooper Andrews, Charlie Boulton and Tom Bell.
One player who will be hoping to expose the Demons young bowlers will be Garry Lolicato, who started his season with a bang having scored 75 of the Raiders’ 115 runs in their win over RSL last weekend.
Although pleased with the form of his co-captain, Barham-Koondrook skipper Jayden Hall is also aware that more of his teammates need to step up with the bat and support Lolicato if they are to be any chance of beating the premiers.
“We need a few more contributors with the bat, especially against a side like Nyah, it will need to be a collaborative performance otherwise the result won’t go in our favour,” Hall said.
“It was good to start with a win, but this weekend is the one that the boys are all excited about.
“To be able to test ourselves against the reigning premiers, we’ll have a very good idea of where we stand within the competition after this weekend.
“Yeah we’ll take some confidence from last weekend, as well as some learnings, but we can’t get stuck on last week too much, especially coming up against a good side.
“For the guys that performed well, we’ll take the confidence gained from that and for the guys who didn’t perform as well as they’d like to, they’ll hopefully learn from their mistakes and come out firing tomorrow.”
The Demons won’t be the only team with a different line-up from last weekend, with Leigh Sobotnicki expected to miss Saturday’s game, with batsman Hayden Solar to come into the Raiders line-up.
Barham-Koondrook’s depth with the ball will see them provide a stern test for Nyah District’s batsmen, with Hall himself having started with a bang after taking four wickets in the opening match.
Despite the Raiders having improved their depth over the off-season, it’s the high-end talent at their disposal that Harrop will be hoping to nullify, with a particular focus on two of the visitor’s key batters.
“They (Barham-Koondrook) are still relatively unknown in many respects for us,” Harrop said.
“I think their two most dangerous players are the Lolicato brothers, they are absolute superstars.
“‘Gaz’ (Garry Lolicato) showed what he’s capable of doing with the bat last week and last year he was quite impressive with the ball against us as well, as was ‘Waz’ (Warren Lolicato) last year with the bat.
“They will be the key players for us to this weekend, if we can find a way to get them out cheaply we’ll be in with a good hot, but if not they will make us pay.”
