SHAKE-UP TO TALENT PATHWAYS
Cricket Gold Coast is rolling out major changes to its talent pathways programs for both junior and seniors
A MAJOR shake-up of Gold Coast’s cricket talent pathways is on the cards and it has divided the community.
Cricket Gold Coast is in talks to strengthen its alignment to the city’s premier club, the Dolphins, in a bid to provide better opportunities for players from under-16s through to grade cricket.
But in doing so it has begun stepping away from the traditional Queensland Country pathway that has long provided senior players, from competitions like the Kookaburra Cup, who are no longer playing premier grade cricket a chance to feature in representative games and a second chance for younger players to be identified for higher honours.
Cricket Gold Coast president Ryan Kettle said there had been a “priority shift” and a “refocus” on the city’s talent structures after choosing not to fund a Queensland Country team.
“Our priority is for the pathways for our juniors and seniors to go through the Gold Coast Dolphins this year,” Kettle said.
“We have gone away from the Queensland Country cricket set-up and we haven’t put funding behind it or participated in it for the first time in a long time. It is about pushing in the correct direction to funnel our best players into the Gold Coast Dolphins and through grade cricket.
“We are meeting with the Dolphins nearly every second week in regards to the systems.
“The junior academy programs will align a lot closer with the Dolphins and the junior representative teams will be named the Dolphins.
“We are also working on a potential senior academy that could play in our T20 competition later this year.
“Other avenues include player identification programs that can feed players into the Dolphins who possibly missed out on representative cricket or who could be late bloomers.”
Kettle said it wasn’t a financial decision where they had to choose one or the other, with the money that has traditionally been used to fund the Queensland Country senior side not being redirected to the Dolphins.
The decision has drawn the ire of some senior players who were forced to create a rebel Gold Coast representative in order to compete for Queensland Country recently in a move that has led to four players landing a shot at nationals.
When told Gold Coast cricket wouldn’t fund this season’s men’s representative team, Claye Beams, Shamus Robertson and Jonathan Smith pushed on to create the “Gold Coast Invitational” team so the Glitter Strip had representation in higher levels of cricket.
They selected a team, with funding from Queensland Country cricket, that made it through to the grand final of the Bulls Masters competition and also featured in the Schaeffer Shield.
Six Gold Coast players – Beams, Kevin Chapman, Josh Nelson, Sam Yabsley, Phil Tunnicliffe and Reece Mcdonald – were then named in the South Queensland team, with only the latter two not making it through to the Queensland Country side.
“The number of players in the side shows how important Gold Coast is to that level of cricket and the quality of players coming out of the city,” Beams said.
The Dolphins premier grade side will play Valley at Bill Pippen Oval on Saturday while the women’s side plays Sandgate-redcliffe on Sunday.
In the Kookaburra Cup first grade competition Runaway Bay takes on Broadbeach Robina, Surfers Paradise plays Helensvale, Palm Beach takes on Coomera, Mudgeeraba plays Queens and Burleigh will play Alberton Ormeau.