ALL EYES ON NIGHTCLIFF TIGER CUBS
Club’s kids have chances to impress in top grade in 2020
LAST season’s Premier Grade cricket semi-finalists Nightcliff will embark on an intensive junior development program through the 2020 season.
The Tigers held a training session for all grades yesterday to introduce their senior and junior players to the new programs and facilities on offer at PSC BM Oval.
New lighting in the training nets, a scoreboard and a cricket academy for rising juniors has the club fully focused on the future.
The news on interstate recruits is mixed, with express right-arm quick Tom Pinson returning, but toporder batsman Brendon Piggott staying in Sydney.
“The big notable for us is big quick Tom Pinson, who returns to lead our bowling attack,’’ club president Brad Hatton told the Sunday Territorian.
“Obviously with the (virus) restrictions and a reduced season it’s going to be a bit harder to get interstate recruits for the Premier Grade.
“Unfortunately, Brendon Piggott won’t be making the trip to Darwin with the restrictions in place, and that’s why we’re really pushing our junior development strategy this year.’’
Hatton said the Tigers were building a “really strong program’’ across all the age groups and that, combined with the new lights at the club’s training facilities, meant a whole lot of new opportunities for the young players.
“Now they can work on pushing themselves up and proving to us they want to play at a higher level,’’ he said. “We want to use this year to try and develop the club after taking a financial hit like everyone else, so we have to be a bit mindful what we spend money on.
“From that we’d prefer to be investing in the players we have instead of recruiting interstate, in fact we’re only going with two interstate recruits this season – Pinson and another player we’re still negotiating with.’’
Hatton said the new facilities were available for use by all Territorians once the district cricket season was over.
“For us it’s a big step forward for NT cricket.
“We’ve built them not just for Nightcliff Cricket Club (but) because we want the whole community to use the facilities and benefit from them.’’