Mareeba juniors reunite for Country U21 tour

Ford, who moved to Townsville to attend university in 2018 and plays for Wests in the local competition, said he was looking forward to catching up with his former teammate.

“His dad was my first actual coach, so we’ve played since about the under-8s for Mareeba,” he said.

“When we got a bit older, we were trying to give first grade a good crack and I went down to Cairns to play for

Rovers and he went up to Atherton.

“We kind of split ways a bit there but it’ll be pretty exciting for us boys to get back on the park together.

“It’s been a fair while between drinks.”

Ford said he wanted to test himself against elite competition in Adelaide, with rumours that South Australian gun quick Chadd Sayers would be making an appearance.

“Apparently he’s going to be in one of the sides we’re playing,” Ford said.

“I don’t know if it’s true or not, but apparently he’s returning from injury so he’s going to come down and bowl a few overs, which would be a crazy experience.

“I didn’t think I’d be playing someone like that.”

The Queensland Country under-21s will head to Brisbane tomorrow for a training session at Alan Border Oval before flying to Adelaide on Monday morning.

While there, they will play two games, a T20 and a twodayer, before returning home on Thursday.

Meanwhile, local cricketers might have to wait another week before the Cricket Far North season restarts, despite fixtures being scheduled to return from today.

Barron players were hard at work on their Crathern Park deck yesterday afternoon in hopes of getting the pitch match-ready for today’s scheduled encounter with Norths.

Cricket Far North president Peter Huey said most grounds were unfit for use this weekend, but some clubs, like Barron, were holding on to hope.

“We’ll see what weather we get overnight and make those decisions in the morning (on Saturday),” he said.