A little fun goes a long way for Davies

JOEL Davies hasn’t hit more balls than normal.

Nor has the champion South Barwon all-rounder toiled harder than any other season to perfect his game.

The reason for his success is simple: “It’s just that fun factor”.

“I’m really enjoying this year and I put it down to that,” Davies said.

“I’m getting a bit older now and I’m more experienced and more mature about how I go about it, but it’s not as though I’m hitting more balls or anything like that. I’m just enjoying my cricket.”

Davies, who is in scintillating touch with both bat and ball, credits first-year captain and former Murgheboluc skipper Terry Hill for the rejuvenated South Barwon culture.

“It’s a great outlet,” Davies said. “Terry’s brought the group together and he made it a fun environment.

“He’s a very good person and he’s all about making sure everyone’s happy and having fun. That’s what we’ve been focusing on, to be honest, making sure everyone is having fun.

“The by-product of that is if everyone is enjoying themselves and they want to get down to training, then everyone is working harder together because of that.

“We’re here to play cricket with our mates and fortunately the rest is taking care of itself.”

After back-to-back half-centuries and solid performances with the ball in the opening two rounds, Davies took his game to another level against premiership contender Grovedale last round.

The former Geelong player decimated the Tigers’ star-studded top order with a matchwinning 5-47.

“It was probably just the at- mospheric conditions that helped,” a modest Davies said.

“The wicket itself looked like it was quite good for batting, but there was a bit of swing around and I managed to get it in the right areas.

“Lewis (Sharp) bowled extremely well and fortunately enough we got a few early poles.”

Leading the Swans to their third-straight victory in the regular season, Davies then spearheaded South’s Geelong Advertiser T20 Cup victory over Newtown & Chilwell on Tuesday night, blasting 99 from 57 balls.

He had plenty of time to reach triple figures, but nicked off to Newtown & Chilwell skipper John Simson.

But Davies said he was not aware he was knocking down the door of another ton. “I had no idea,” he said. “I was trying to set myself to bat the last five overs and hit with the wind. I was just trying to nudge them around and unfortunately I nicked one.

“That’s the way it goes. It didn’t really perturb me too much. We were in a good position and it is what it is.

“It’s always good to make a hundred, but you can’t change what’s happened, so there’s no point worrying about it.”

Heading into Round 4 against Bell Post Hill today, Davies shapes as the danger man.

With the bat he has 215 runs at 53.75 across all formats, while his swing bowling has generated six scalps at 16.38, with a fine economy rate of 3.26.

Picture: MIKE DUGDALE ALL-ROUND THREAT: Joel Davies has been in sublime form this season. AO: Thanks for your time, Pittsy. You finished up back in 2016. Does it feel like you’ve been a long time retired? AP: In some ways, yeah. Sometimes you think you could go around again, but when you think about it, it does feel like a long time ago. AO: What were the main reasons for pulling up stumps? AP: Probably fitness, family and work. It wasn’t always easy to get through a game of cricket. AO: You spent pretty much all of your career at City, didn’t you? AP: Pretty much, certainly all my turf cricket. I started down at Portarlington and came in as a 16-year-old and spent the rest of my time at City. AO: You notched up 10 tons. Was your unbeaten 142 the best of them? AP: I remember that one. That was in a one-dayer against East Belmont and a couple of others made a few runs as well. That was one of those games where the outfield was fast and everything seemed to come out of the middle. AO: You were captain of the club. How many years were you in charge? AP: About four years. When we went down to Division 2, I took over the captaincy and I stayed on for a couple of years after that. AO: You would’ve played with some fine cricketers. AP: As a young fella, the club had a bit of success and I remember a lot of great players had come back to play at City from Geelong. He was only there for a couple of seasons, but Clint McHenry came and captained the firsts and that was a stage where we played in grand finals. We lost a few grand finals and it took a long time to actually win one. There were some other guys who had been around the club for a long time … Travis Agg, who had stints at Geelong and he was also a great influence. We had a patch where we struggled a bit and he took over and took us to grand finals. And he was a pretty special bowler. Luke Hardiman had a few years there when he was unstoppable.

AO: Did you win a premiership? AP: We won a flag in Division 2 and I was captain. The first year we went back we lost the grand final, but we won the next year and went back up again. That was the only winning grand final in six or seven.