Riverside coach Lyndon Stubbs says old-fashioned hard work is behind Tom Garwood's continued dominance of Northern Tasmanian cricket.
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The 28-year-old Blues captain took out another Cricket North player of the round award last weekend following a match-winning 67 and 2-31 against Mowbray.
The big-hitting left-hander has finished top 10 in the league batting charts for six of the past seven seasons and Stubbs knows why.
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"His work ethic and his will to win I guess - he's always working hard," Stubbs said.
"I think when he's batting his best he's getting to training early, hitting extra balls and doing extra sessions.
"When he gets in and he's batting well, he wants to be there and contribute to the wins as much as he can."
Entering his fourth season as skipper, Garwood is determined to lead the Blues to a finals appearance for the first time this season.
He has exposed the likes of Cooper Anthes, James Simpson and Sam Artis to regular A-grade cricket in recent seasons as the Blues look to build their next premiership side from the ground up.
"He's an excellent leader and he leads by example with his results," Stubbs said.
"But also with our young group he leads the discussions and the thought process behind everything.
"He's such a good leader with our young group and that contributes to his success as well because he thinks so deeply about the game with our tactics and where he wants us to excel."
The Blues' next step is to snap a run of three consecutive fourth-placed finishes.
"We had a really positive season last year," Stubbs said.
"We were in a position to make the finals and we'd beaten a lot of the teams above us so we were really confident going into [two-day cricket] but it didn't fall our way in the end.
"Winning games in March is our goal at the moment and the progress over the last couple of years and getting games into kids who are turning into good contributors now is important in that."
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