NORTHERN cricket identity Jade Selby has swapped his cricket bat for a football after being appointed by North Launceston as their TSL Development League coach for the 2016 season.
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Selby returns to the club where he played in an under-15 premiership team in 1993, before devoting himself to a distinguished cricket career which superceded his football.
He brings a wealth of sporting experience to the mentoring and development role as a 300-game, nine-time Launceston Cricket Club A-grade premiership player, captain and coach.
He is a Launceston Team of the Centuries member, played 15 Tasmanian second XI games and was inducted in the Cricket North Hall of Fame in 2014.
Selby’s cricket resume includes a five-year stint for Cricket Tasmania as the inaugural Tassie Roar state women’s coach and he is the Cricket North representative coach.
He managed to fit some football in between his extensive cricket commitments playing with NTFA clubs Mowbray and Hillwood.
More recently, he spent three years as senior coach at division 1 club Hillwood from 2009-11 and was bench coach at Lilydale last season.
‘‘I feel really excited to work with someone like Zane (Littlejohn) and the club,’’ Selby said.
‘‘They are very professional and I’ve already been to a couple of training sessions.
‘‘I’m excited to learn from them and work with them for 12 months and we’ll see what happens at the end of that.’’
Selby said his connection with Littlejohn went back to when the North senior coach was a batsman playing with Latrobe and a member of under-age state squads before the recent approach from the club about taking over the Development League role vacated by Colin Lockhart.
‘‘The DL squad are young and fit and they are well-drilled and still hungry after winning a couple of flags, which I like to see, so I was impressed,’’ he said.
‘‘Being the DL coach is about doing a lot of what the senior coach wants and they are pretty well-organised and know what is going on.
‘‘It’s exciting to be part of the successful club that they are and learning more for any future coaching roles.’’