Redbacks ready: Little River to go with the flow
LITTLE River co-coach Nic Fairchild insists his side won’t make any excuses ahead of the Bellarine Peninsula Cricket Association season, despite enduring an interrupted preseason.
The Redbacks have backed the BPCA’s push to launch the season on November 6 – a week ahead of schedule – even though the club has been unable to complete a pre-season.
Little River has been sorely impacted by Covid-19 restrictions, with just under half the senior playing group unable to train due to the regionalmetropolitan divide.
Fairchild, arguably the club’s most important player, is among a handful of A2 players who have been forced away from training.
“It’s always hard when the club has been split in half – half the players in regional and the other half in metro,” Fairchild said.
“It sounds bad, but we’re used to it now. We’ve been training to run Zoom sessions as a group and it makes it really hard, but in Covid times, that’s all you can really do.”
Fairchild concedes his players will be “underdone” from a skills point of view, but that they will be ready for round 1.
“We ran a fitness program in August to give our players a fitness base, but cricket-wise it has been really hard,” Fairchild said.
“When you’ve got half your club that can’t train because of lockdown, you’re really behind in comparison to other clubs, but it’s just what we have to do to get the season started.
“It’s a disadvantage, but the club responded really well last year when we were impacted and I think we’ve responded well again.
“We just want to get playing and we’ll do whatever we can to get playing. The league has been really good in giving our lower grades byes early in the season to make it easier to fill sides, but it’s definitely no excuse on our part. We know if we play our best cricket we can still win games, we just need to be switched on.”
BPCA president Ian Caldwell said the association was eager to start the season on November 6, provided Victoria achieves the double dose vaccination target, and the Redbacks are supportive of the push to get the ball rolling.
“They’ve put it out to (their) committee and the feedback I’ve had is they didn’t have any impediment to the club playing competition on November 6,” Caldwell said.
“I was very mindful of Little River’s position.”