Roar get resources they need

A MUCH needed influx of resources will hopefully make the Tasmanian Roar competitive again as Cricket Tasmania aims to lift its flagging female flagship.

The Roar were winless last season, resulting in inaugural coach Julia Price not having her contract renewed.

CT’s high performance talent manager Ben Rohrer said new coach Salliann Briggs would be given the tools to succeed.

“After last year’s season it has been a big focus for the organisation to put a lot of resources behind this year’s female program,” Rohrer said.

“It’s really exciting to keep a core group to see what they can do with increased resourcing and better coaching structure. We’re putting an extra [assistant] coach in place as well.

“They’ll have everything at their disposal this year and the really exciting part for the girls is that the majority of them will be here during the pre-season.”

The Roar have recruited Australian under-18 top-order bat Ashely Day from NSW as well as local talents Emma Mannix-Geeves and Sasha Moloney into a largely unchanged line up.

Rohrer believes there is a core group of players to make the Roar a force in years to come. “It is not just her, there are a group of young girls in that line-up who have had Australian representation in the past year — Georgia Redmayne, Erin Fazackerley, Emma Mannix-Geeves and Courtney Webb,” he said.

“There is a base of a really strong, good young team there and if we can get some older players around them they can hopefully help them develop through the pre-season.”

Previously, Rohrer said because of the reliance on flyin, fly-out personnel only a handful of Roar players have undertaken a full pre-season before the team came together a week before the first game, but he expected up to 14 players to do the required full preparation, creating a high performance environment.