Cricket North: Launceston and Riverside in grand final replay

The Blues bid to remain undefeated is boosted by Aidan O'Connor returning from Greater Northern Raiders duty while Cooper Anthes is out of the side with other commitments.

"It's exciting to get Aidan back, it's going to be a huge year for him and hopefully he's playing a lot of cricket for them and bringing that experience back into the club will be good," coach Lyndon Stubbs said.

Stubbs said his side was eager to match themselves against the reigning premier as a test of their credentials.

"It's a good time to see them and hopefully we can play a good game of cricket and if it's us two up the top again we want to have the upper-hand in that battle," he said.

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Launceston are set to be the main beneficiaries from the return of the Raiders with Alistair Taylor, Will Bennett back in the side while Charlie Eastoe and Dravid Rao will make their club debuts.

Dihan Cloete and Daniel Smith miss through injury while James Lee, George Maguire and Ethan Conway are also out.

The Lions will also unleash 18-year-old fast bowler Edward Faulkner, who will take the new ball.

"[Edward] had a really good year last year and played in the threes and twos grand final and we just think he's ready to go to take the new ball," Gower said.

"We're really comfortable with where we're at as a club and at as a group, obviously grand final replays are always exciting and we fully respect Riverside and what they bring to the table," Gower said.

South Launceston are determined to bounce back from their narrow loss to Launceston and get their win tally underway against Westbury.

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The Knights welcome back James Beattie from the Raiders at the expense of Ian Labrooy.

"[James'] maturity and leadership, we're just excited to have him in the group and see how he goes about it to raise the standard," coach Nathan Philip said.

"We've really nutted out the one to two percenters and worked on them hard during the week and we didn't take too much negativity, I thought it was a really positive game even though we didn't get the result."

Westbury will welcome Deepak Singh and Nasrullah Khan for their club debuts as well as former first grade captain Michael Lukic and James Tyson against South Launceston.

"Having the bye round one allowed us to get a few extra sessions in, followed by a solid practice match versus New Town Cricket Club, so we feel ready to go," Shamrocks coach Matthew Battle said.

"We just need to execute our skills and game plan, hopefully that will get us a win."

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