Coach thanks golden Eagle for getting his claws into young Raiders batsman

The Riverside vice-captain spent much of his pre-season fine-tuning his skills with former Mowbray captain Clinton Reid, and Raiders coach Alistair Taylor said the results are starting to show.

"The whole pre-season was different for Cooper and we saw a big improvement," Taylor said.

"He did a lot of work with Clinton and they came up with a good gameplan for him. I thought it was only a matter of time before he got a big score so was not surprised when it happened."

After initially struggling in the Cricket Tasmania Premier League, Anthes returned to Riverside where his maiden first-grade century proved a major turning point.

Ironically, Taylor also hit three figures in the November clash between Riverside and Launceston and was delighted for his CN adversary but CTPL teammate.

"We had dropped him earlier in the year due to lack of form and he went back to Riverside and did really well, got his first hundred and put some really good performances on the board to get back in the side," Taylor added.

"He took that on the chin and has a great attitude. He really wants to do well and scoring his first hundred in grade cricket will be really important because he now knows how to score big runs and hopefully can start doing that for us too."

Since returning to the orange, Anthes has been a steady contributor, chipping in with 24 batting at six in the agonising seven-run loss to Clarence on Sunday.

Raiders return to two-day action at UTAS Stadium this weekend, sitting fourth on the ladder, with one win from three games. Clarence are top with three wins.

Raiders women are also looking to bounce back from a narrow loss, by just one run to New Town on Sunday.

Darren Simmonds' team hit the Midland Highway again for a one-dayer against North Hobart at the TCA Ground.

The fixture will be Sascha Lowry's last Raiders game before she heads to Western Australia for university studies while Ella Scolyer is also unavailable.