BEWDY NEWC

‘Silly not to consider’ radical merge plan to save GCA battler

NEWCOMB president Jason Clark believes it is getting harder to recruit players each year, and a potential merger with embattled Newcomb & District could happen in the near future.

The Dinos were forced to forfeit their third-grade side in the opening round of the Geelong Cricket Association season after being unable to secure enough players to take to the field.

Clark said Newcomb had similar problems in the Bellarine Peninsula Cricket Association.

“There’s a couple of issues with it all, first I think no one wants to play two-day cricket anymore,” he said.

“The purists love it, the players who love cricket want to play the two-day stuff, but it’s hard to recruit for it.

“You can’t convince many guys who are thinking about returning to cricket to stand in the field for 75 overs in a day, especially when it’s hard wicket.

“There has been that chit chat about potentially merging with Newcomb & District, but at the end of the day they don’t want to leave, we don’t want to leave, but it would be silly not to consider it if things keep going the way they are.”

Newcomb does not have a junior program to push players through to the senior grades as they progress through their cricketing careers, meaning the club relies on longstanding servants and recruits to put teams on a field each week.

Clark said the impact of Covid was detrimental to the club, and there were plans to try to reintroduce a junior program.

“We used to have one junior team, but the numbers dropped off and now we don’t have that junior program anymore,” he said.

“Having only a couple of teams means we don’t make enough money each year to really go after new recruits and pay them what they want. We might only make 10-12 grand each season, and that gets eaten up pretty quickly if we start paying players what they want.

“So they go and play somewhere else for money, and we don’t get those big name recruits. It’s so hard for clubs, it’s hard work with a lot of the turf clubs being able to get to those good players.

“So it’s too hard to get the juniors off the ground.”