St Peter’s coach lays down the challenge

ST PETER’S coach Anthony Ford has laid down the challenge to his bowlers to improve as the Saints bid to avoid a third-straight loss.

Ford said he met the bowling group on Tuesday night, demanding a better effort after modest contributions against Bell Park (Round 1) and Murgheboluc (Round 2).

“I’m certainly not the type of coach that goes and rants and raves — I don’t think that works — but I’ve just challenged a few of them to be just a bit better and hopefully it clicks,” Ford said.

“The sooner the better, really. I’ve committed to the bowling group for this game, that will remain the same.

“I had a chat to them last night and just asked for a better effort all-round, but I said I was prepared to stick with them.

“For us as a young group, I’m just trying to get them to believe that they’re good enough, and they are.”

The Saints were soundly beaten in the season opener, losing to reigning premier Bell Park by nine wickets, before disappointing fielding led to defeat against Murgheboluc.

“When you look at last week, our fielding was really, really poor and the bowling wasn’t too bad. Technically we should’ve only been chasing 200 if we held some catches,” Ford said.

“The batting was something that I was really impressed with. We showed a bit of character, so there are certainly signs that we’re not far away. It’s just about putting it all together. We might bat well one week and our fielding let’s us down … but the figures say the bowling has been great.

“When you’ve taken 8-430 out of 85 overs that we’ve bowled so far, it’s a lot and that needs to change.”

The task doesn’t get any easier tomorrow, with St Peter’s facing last year’s grand finalist Torquay at Spring Creek Reserve.

“Going through the fixture, they all seem pretty tough at this stage, especially when we haven’t been able to piece it all together in either of the two games so far,” Ford said.

“It does appear a challenge every week, but we just have to keep working away and hopefully things turn for us.

“We set some standards and expectations at the start of the year and I just really want them to stick to that or get as close as they can.

“It’s just basic stuff and if we get somewhere near those standards we’ll win games.”