By Richard Davidson
South Canterbury Community Cricket Officer
HAG Centres
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Fairlie, Craighead (y7), Craighead (y8), St Joes, Holiday
(20)
Kiwi Centre
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Craighead, Grantlea, Temuka, Bluestone, Timaru Christian, St Andrews,
Highfield.
Milo Cup and Shield
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20 Cup sides
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10 Shield sides
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Again, running the Kiwi and HAG programmes through the school system
was very successful as well as putting the teachers through coach
education courses.
Holiday Programmes
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4 holiday programmes were held through July, September, December
and April attracting 80 children
Coach Education
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HAG Courses x 3 with 40 participants
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Kiwi Courses x 1 with 6 participants
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Getting Started x 1 with 3 participants (1 course to be
run in April Holidays) -
Level 2 Refresher with 3 participants
Other School Competitions
Primary:
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Year 5-6, 12 teams in Temuka, Geraldine and Timaru
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Summer tournament , run over 1 day with 14 year 5-6 teams and 18
year 7-8 teams -
Quick Hit, 4 teams
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Primary sides knocked out in first round played extra games under
shortened format
Secondary
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NZCT Girls, 5 teams
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Gillette Cup, 5 teams
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NZCT Year 6, 7 teams
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Super 8,s 8 teams
Interfirm
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Timaru, 13 teams
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Geraldine, 6 teams
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Waimate, 8 teams
Leadership Courses
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2 in 2007 and 2 booked in for 2008
Representative Season
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Year 5-6 – 3rd
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Development – 3rd
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Primary A – 6th
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U15 – 3rd
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U17 – 3rd
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U19 – 5th
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Senior – 3nd
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U15 Girls – 4th
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U17 Girls – 3rd
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Senior Woman – 2nd equal
Milo Initiatives
All schools in the South Canterbury region have been visited throughout the 2004-2005 season and welcomed the Milo and Kiwi awareness lessons of which many wanted to repeat them during the latter part of the season.
With the help of the Hospital Board, South Canterbury Cricket set up a pilot project called WAVE, which stands for ‘Welfare and Vitality in Education.
Initially we engaged 5 primary schools to take part in a coaching project which linked young people with local community cricket clubs, with the ultimate goal being more people playing cricket.
In the short term, more children were physically active through cricket in schools, and the long term being physically active in their leisure time through cricket with clubs. Although numbers of cricketers never increased dramatically, cricket alternatives (eg modified games) played a big part in their development. With Cricket Clubs now firmly affiliated with school sides, they realize that there is a Club/School identity.
Community Cricket Initiatives
As an integral part of the Community Cricket Initiatives, South Canterbury Cricket looked at ways to improve the standard of club cricket, and believed this could be achieved through better organised, more purposeful practice sessions.
We offered the clubs the opportunity to improve their practice procedures through funding, guidance and assistance on how to set up a quality practice programme with well structured weekly sessions.
For the funding to become available , each club had to meet certain criteria including appointing a coaching co-ordinator, attend a coaching workshop and then return a brief review of the outcomes at the end of the season. Providing each club met its obligations a grant of $300 was made to be used at the discretion of the club. The South Canterbury Cricket Association also provided resources to the value of $300 to help the practice procedures including cones, stumps, balls, baseball mitt etc. The six Senior sides in South Canterbury took up this opportunity which was widely acclaimed as being a success.
Club Cricket
Club Cricket in South Canterbury has increased it playing numbers slightly in the past season with an increase at JAB level of 4 teams and in the year 9-10 age group of an extra 3 teams. This has come about of the good work done at Timaru Boys High where their numbers have increases from 75 boys in 2006 to over 135 in 2007-08. Much of this increase is due to the different formats of the game available to boys. (super 8s, slog sixes, interfirm etc).
Celtic was victorious in the 1 day competition, chasing Timaru’s 160 all out reached the total with 5 wickets down.
In the two day Tweedy cup final, Temuka lost on the first innings to Timaru. Batting first Temuka were dismissed for 258 and in reply Temuka batted poorly to be all out for 108. In their second turn at bat Timaru faired little better and were all out for 108 leaving Temuka 258 for victory in 37 overs. When bad light stopped play Temuka were 156/6.
All senior sides had reasonable numbers and competed well in both forms of the game with many of the High School leavers filtering into the senior ranks. All other grades enjoyed success at different stages and with the increase in player numbers it put pressure on wickets which meant most weekends some teams had to play away from home. ( a good problem to have).
During the winter months, winter trainings at all age groups were were well attended with cricketers in the 14-16 age group the most promising with large numbers vying for the age group tournament team, This bids well for the future.
One of the issues that must be addressed by cricket administrators at both district and their Major is the availability of school leavers when they head on to tertiary education. Many of South Canterbury school leavers don’t even get the chance to play senior cricket in their association, let alone district cricket as they are snapped up by senior sides in Christchurh and promised the earth, only to be lost in the system.
Woman’s Cricket
Women’s Cricket in South Canterbury has decreased by 2 teams in the past season but increases in the numbers playing modified games. Some of the Milo Shield games have been played under the Quick Hit rules.
One of the positives is the inclusion of the Roncalli side which is made up of many of the girls that were part of the very successful St Joesephs Milo Shield side of a few years ago. In fact with the help of one of the teachers they won the Women’s grade competition with a good final against the Craighead side
At both the u15 and u17 tournaments the South Canterbury teams competed well, with the u15 side doing particularly well with a very young side.
At the senior level, the senior women were not quite as successful as previous years when they only won 3 of their 6 games in the defence of the Aotea Cup. Highlights in this competition would be beating comfortably the eventual winner, Southland on Aorangi Oval in the last game of the season. Batting first, Southland got through to 167/6.
Two girls, namely Janet Brehaut and Liza Grant made their State League debuts this season and should be integral parts of both the Canterbury and Otago setups for a number of years.
Roncalli obtained the services of Amber Boyce, who in her own right is a champion golfer and plays off a 1 handicap. At Aotea cup level she was hands above any of the players South Canterbury came up across and she should easily make the Magicians team if her golfing commitments allow her. She is currently training with Rowan Milburn.
Looking towards the 2008-2009 season
With a busy and reasonably successful cricket season behind us we can look forward to next season with allot of confidence. Implementation of the Milo and Club Cricket initiatives have been very successful and with more in the pipeline to be put into action in the forth coming season it appear that Primary, Secondary, and Club Cricket is once again getting stronger within the South Canterbury Cricket Association.
Many of the age group squads have been announced for the 2008/09 season, with games already been played with the neighbouring associations.