Despite losing four quality players during the off-season, Launceston captain Cam Lynch still wanted to make the Cricket North two-day finals.
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Daniel Smith (Trevallyn), Tom Gray (year off), Jackson Miller (retired) and Sam Elliston-Buckley, who all played in last season's losing grand final, were the big four they went without.
Smith, Gray and Miller were a strong bowling trio while Elliston-Buckley was a prolific opening batter in the 2022-23 summer.
Launceston's season came to an end on the weekend when they were beaten outright by a determined Riverside outfit gunning for a home semi-final.
It's unfamiliar territory for the Lions who have played in the past three two-day grand finals, including beating Riverside in 2020-21.
Launceston, who finished fourth out of five sides with six wins and seven losses overall, were a slim chance of making finals going into the last home-and-away round.
Although disappointed to miss the pointy end of the season, Lynch said the Lions had shown "some really good signs".
"We got cricket into some younger fellas which we haven't had the ability to do the past couple of years because we've been pretty strong," he said.
The skipper noted Lucas Boyden, who scored 17 runs against Riverside, Charlie Taylor and Archie Clayton were among the young brigade that had gained experience.
Lynch wants to continue getting games and experience into youngsters again next season while hopefully drawing a few experienced heads back to the club.
According to new coach Heath Clayton, all-rounder Will Bennett and wicket-keeper/batter Taylor were going to be the players to watch this season and that's how it out turned out.
Batting at number four, Bennett hit 74 from 126 in a one-day win against South Launceston and earned three votes in The Examiner's player of the season.
Taylor made scores of 64 and 49 during the one-dayers.
Lynch said they had both taken the next step in their careers.
"With Charlie, whenever he had played A-grade cricket in the past, he had come in to bat at seven-odd," he said.
"He's opening for us and batting at five in two-day cricket."
Lynch said Bennett had significantly improved his batting this year while keeping up his impressive bowling standard.
Across the formats
The captain highlighted how competitive the Lions had been in the one-dayers. They just missed out on the top four with five wins and four losses.
"One-day cricket was certainly our strength and we were able to really restrict teams with the ball," Lynch said.
"Twenty20 and red-ball cricket didn't suit us as much."
The Lions' only T20 round-robin win came against Mowbray.
They lost three of their four two-day matches, also beating Mowbray after keeping the Eagles to 161 in their first innings.
"We had a lot of young guys play red-ball cricket and it was good to get some experience into them but we weren't able to be consistent for long enough in the two-dayers to be competitive," Lynch said.