Hot Chicken’s project
MOST often powering in with the wind to his back, the lanky paceman known as ‘Chicken’ has, for the past four years, sought to intimidate batsmen with his searing pace and escalating bounce.
With a game shaped in part by renowned local fast-bowling coach Bryan Thomas, things clicked into gear last week as
inflicted his rampant finest on an unfortunate St Joseph’s line-up with 7-30. The former Geelong Premier cricketer, who spent four years out of the game when seemingly at the peak of his powers, gave the Geelong Advertiser some insight into what makes him tick.
I was around 16 when I first worked with Bryan. He tinkered with my bowling and encouraged me to move from Colac’s City United down to Geelong. We had about three or four spinners in that Rockets team and I was probably the stand-alone quick. It was a great opportunity that led to me ultimately playing twos and threes at Geelong, which was really competitive cricket. I was really grateful to meet a bloke like Bryan who was so influential in the development of my game.
Our threes were pretty strong back then, so we regularly made finals. The twos were also strong under Travis Agg, so I really enjoyed the 11 games that I got to play in that team. There were other guys like Luke Muller, Cam Alford and Jake Reed, who was coming through at the time.
They were always hovering around ones and twos, so it was terrific to learn from those older, more senior players. There were a lot of good blokes who I learnt a lot from. I remember playing a seconds semi-final at Essendon.
Yeah, I got to play against James and Darren Pattinson at Dandenong. I think James was injured and limited to batting, but it was pretty surreal knowing who they were.
Damian Shanahan. We got along well and I really liked his aggression.
Getting told off brings the best out of me, rather than being loved too much.
Bill is a lot more fitness and fielding based, while Bobby (Gorman) just loves coaching. He’s a good guy to have around and provides really useful feedback when you need it.
Bobby definitely doesn’t, but I’m hoping Billy does. I generally know nowadays when I’m not performing and I need a little rev-up. I was pretty disappointed with myself the first couple of weeks this season.
I just kept breaking down with groin and hip injuries, so I just thought I’d stop thinking about cricket and enjoy the summer doing other things. I was playing footy at Colac at the time. I knew at a young age that I probably should have concentrated on one thing and not on both. It’s pretty full-on running seasons together. The pre-season expectation at Geelong Cricket Club was like a footy pre-season. I probably didn’t push myself and also it was made all the more difficult with the travel from Colac and being on the tools as a builder. I do regret not having applied myself a bit more, but you do learn from your mistakes.
I was mates with some of Joel Davies’s mates at Birregurra footy club, even before I met Joel. I got to meet Joel at the Barwon Hotel and he asked me to come down to South Barwon. I left Geelong and went down at Christmas in 2011. We got knocked out in the prelim final by Grovedale and I stopped playing cricket after that. I did enjoy my short time there, which is why I came back to the club in 2016. I was getting itchy feet around 25 and a few clubs rang me, but I felt I owed South Barwon something and decided to go back there.
We get into ‘Hornet’ (Brad Hauenstein) a bit because he’s been there so long. He’s probably my main driver to want to win a flag because I respect him a lot. There’s other guys, like Simon Breuer, who deserve to see us win a flag. I don’t think we’re far off, we just need to tinker with a few things and hopefully start jelling properly.
Kyle has matured a lot from his experience at Geelong and he really worked hard into the wind, putting pressure on the Joeys’ batsmen for me, by tying down one end. That let me come down wind and allowed my pace to do the talking. It came off on the weekend.
100 per cent. Now I can explain to the kids coming through what you need to do, which I didn’t. Hopefully I can help the young kids coming through — guys like Cullan Spence — to understand what they need to do to reach the highest level possible. Hopefully I can help them with their pathway to Premier Cricket.
Yeah, hopefully Joel Davies and Jack Spence can get us over the line and kickstart our season. We hope to get to Christmas in a reasonable spot so we can push hard in the last three months.