Magpies coach Andrew Squires says a tough off-season has more or less hampered his side, which has struggled with player shortages in recent weeks.
“We’ve been struggling, we’ve had to pull out of the T20s, we’ve just got too many guys isolating and too many guys waiting on results,” Squires said.
“We got struck down a fair bit with COVID (in the off-season) — we ended up having to get back to training a week later than we normally would, it made it really tricky, I’m pretty sure most of the other clubs are in the same boat.
“It’s been very tricky organising training to game days when a fair percentage of your club are ether in isolation or waiting on test results, just tough times for everyone at the moment.”
With finals likely out of the equation, Squires says the focus now is getting games under the belt for his side’s younger players with a vision for next season in mind.
“Our goal is to get as much experience into the young blokes and set them up for next season,” he said.
“That’s not to say we’re not going to try and put our best foot forward, but our priority now is to try and fast track the development of our young blokes and throw them in the deep end a little bit and see how they go.”
A highlight of last weekend was a classy middle-order knock from Jake Smith, who compiled a vital 47 off 63 balls, alongside Squires himself who played well notching a half-century.
The bowling performances of Fletcher Paul also continue to give his side something to smile about, after he snagged an important two wickets with three maidens to his name.
The Magpies will come up against Shepparton United on Saturday, a team in a similar predicament to them.
“You’ve got two clubs that are on the bottom of the ladder, but both have something to prove, so I think there’ll be some very entertaining cricket,” Squires said.
“From our side of things, we’ve got nothing to lose now, so we can sort of go out and play with a bit of freedom, no-one’s going to hold anything back.”
