Starting this season, the North's best female cricketers will have an easier way to access the Southern-based Premier League competition as the Greater Northern Raiders' application has been accepted.
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Having previously had to either move down South or travel for training and games, leaving their NTCA club, the association's brightest prospects will get the chance to battle it out against the state's best in 40 and 20-over competition.
With the 40-over competition split into two divisions, the Raiders will dive head-first into the deep end, having been accepted to join Clarence, Kingborough, North Hobart and South Hobart Sandy Bay in the division one league.
Cricket operations manager for both the men's and women's entities, Richard Bennett, said the announcement of the side creates an outstanding opportunity for female cricket.
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"Whilst the men in the Northern half of the state have now had a generation where they've missed that pathway, it's been nothing like that for the women with the women's game developing of late," he said.
"This is a chance for ambitious young women to be able to get on a pathway to first-class cricket without necessarily having to go to Hobart to pursue it."
Introduced into the men's competition following Michael Hussey's review of Tasmanian cricket and its pathways, the women's side was "always a possibility" according to Bennett.
"Unlike the men's program, we've decided to start with the possibility of self-referral and what we've asked the girls to do is to self-assess that if they are in the top third or thereabouts of their club side, that's a fair indication they will be competitive for Raiders selection."
The side now joins former NTCA players Riverside's Emma Manix-Geeves (New Town) and Sophie Parkin (UTAS) and South Launceston's Courtney Webb (Clarence) within the competition with Bennett hoping those players could be enticed to Raiders representation.
Alongside Manix-Geeves, Parkin and Webb, the possibility of recruiting contracted Tasmanian Tigers or Hurricanes players is one that excites Bennett.
"In the middle of next month we will be formally required to make that pitch [for contracted players] and we've decided that we will be pitching for two players.
"Whether we have success, I don't know but we've been told it's possible.
"If we do, that's an enormous opportunity because those players are at the high end and the opportunity to play with and against the best players is really what progresses the improvement and value of the pathway."
Players selected within the Raiders side will be able to play for their NTCA side in the same weekend due to the Premier League's flexibility in their 20-over competition.
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