Cricket North's 2019-20 season came to a premature close last month with minor premier Westbury eventually awarded the title.
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In the last of a series of reviews, The Examiner looks over the season that was for Mowbray.
Season in a nutshell: The Eagles lost the experience of Rohan Pooley, Connor Lockhart, Sagar Chhetri, Ben Bodha and Rhys Watson after last campaign and played most of 2019-20 with five or more teenagers in the side. James Storay's outfit picked up just two wins, both against South Launceston, but improved steadily as the season progressed.
Team highlight: A 13-run win over South Launceston in round 10 gave an exciting glimpse into the future of the Mowbray Cricket Club. A bona fide team effort saw captain Luke Scott (55) and Blake Cassidy (4-27 off 10) take the headlines with Jono Jones (28 and 3-26), Spencer Hayes (26) and Sam Canny (28) all making key contributions.
Team lowlight: The Eagles struggled to put a score on the board early in the season and were bowled out for 98, 59 and 104 in their first three outings.
RELATED: Westbury 2019-20 season review
Individual performance: Veteran John LeFevre wound back the clock with 101 against Riverside in round five to break the shackles on Mowbray's batting woes. Spencer Hayes compiled his first A-grade 50 against the same opponent in round 14 before falling 15 runs short of a ton.
What worked: Mowbray's batting improved steadily throughout the season with the experienced heads of Scott and LeFevre setting the tone. The Eagles made 7-237 in a round 14 draw with Riverside - Hayes and Lochie Geard hitting maiden A-grade 50s - and finished the season by cracking 300 against South Launceston.
What didn't work: The Eagles made do without a clear strike bowler with Ben Spinks spending much of the season with the Raiders. Every other club had at least one bowler take 20 wickets - a feat achieved by Callum Peck and Sam Freeman last season - while the Eagles had six bowlers take between 10 and 13 scalps.
Best recruit: Jono Jones was more than handy after returning from a season with Sportsmans Cricket Club in Western Australia. The all-rounder finished as the club's equal-top wicket-taker (13) with coach James Storay and young spinner Sam Freeman, fourth in the batting charts (210 runs) and debuted in the Greater Northern Raiders' season finale.
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Surprise packet: Will Dakin was called on to open the batting in his first season of A-grade and the youngster answered with seven scores of 17-plus, including 44 against Burnie, to finish third in the batting charts. He finished the season in third grade due to school cricket and made three 50s, including a 61 in a man-of-the-match grand final performance.
MVP: Luke Scott. The captain was a rock at the top of the order and made four 50s to finish with 381 runs and a team of the year selection. He also snagged a rare wicket against South Launceston. LeFevre hit 338 runs for the season with three scores of 75-plus.
Coach says: "It's a lot different to coaching footy and also going from one extreme to the other in terms of having a pretty mature list to coaching a team that's on the rebuild with a heap of young kids.
"Overall results alone weren't the be-all and end-all, but it was nice to see the third-grade guys have a pretty tight-knit group and continue on and win the grand final.
"Our first and second-grade guys were pretty much a young list of guys apart from John LeFevre in the ones and Rik Considine in the twos that were sort of the veterans there.
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"After Christmas, especially in A-grade, we started to perform a lot better which I think was pleasing and I guess the young kids really held their own in what was, for most of them, their first full season in A-grade.
"We feel that we are heading in the right direction if we one; keep them all, two; add a couple to our list and three; continue to work hard at training.
'The off-field side was just as important as the on-field side and to the guys' credit we didn't really have to push much at all.
"The young kids are a pretty tight-knit group, they got behind the club and everything had a much better feel to it as the season went on - hopefully it's the stepping stone for some success in the future.
"What we're trying to do is get our young kids better and hopefully the rest will take care of itself if we play the right standard of cricket.
"Will Dakin made 200 runs in the first half of the year, I think he's only 16 which is a really good achievement.
"He focuses on his batting really hard, especially with Yabby [Clinton Reid] and he took everything on board which is what you want to see as a coach.
"Billsy really held his own - he's improved out of sight from the season before to this year just gone and he's set himself up to be a really key cog in our rebuild for years to come.
"Yab and I are going to co-coach next season.
"We're starting to get to the point where we're not fussed about the opposition, we're just focusing solely on ourselves and having someone like Yabby to do it with me - there's probably no one better in the North of the state to be honest.
"He's been there, done it, coached flags, captained flags, been there through the rough period.
"I think in the early 2000s they had a young team just as bad as what we are now, they stuck together, got through and then won all those flags in a row.
"Yab knows first-hand what to do and has got a fair few runs on the board for the blokes - there's a spring in their step knowing Yab's come back to to the club to start with.
"I think not only did everyone learn off him, but they fed off having Yab around."
Hamish Geale
Hamish Geale is a senior reporter at The Examiner. Got good news? Email: hgeale@examiner.com.au
Hamish Geale is a senior reporter at The Examiner. Got good news? Email: hgeale@examiner.com.au
