By Russell Bennett
It seemed fitting that in the same week Kooweerup officially unveiled its new nets, one of its biggest cricketing rivals in West Gippsland, Cardinia, again highlighted the plight of its dangerous practice facility.
Day two of the Bulls’ clash with the Demons on Saturday at E. Gunton Oval coincided with the Bulls’ sponsors and life members day, where Warragul favourite son Mark Ridgway was the guest speaker, through a question and answer session with Bulls club president Luke Turner.
The former fast-medium bowler, Casey-South Melbourne coach and current Victorian state selector spoke about how a kid from Warragul ended up plying his Sheffield Shield trade for Tasmania, among a whole host of other topics in an eye-opening presentation.
He spoke about how Bellerive and the Adelaide Oval were his two favourite grounds to play on, while the Waugh twins – Steve and Mark – were his toughest opponents at Shield level.
He also touched on the experience of making his debut alongside Ricky Ponting – despite the age gap between he and the future Australian skipper.
But it was the story of how the boy from Warragul ended up representing Tasmania that captured a lot of the attention.
“I was a born and bred Warragul boy and I used to travel down to play for Fitzroy Doncaster in Premier cricket,” he explained.
“I worked in Traralgon, so I went Warragul-Traralgon, Traralgon-Doncaster, Doncaster-Warragul three nights a week.”
He won a Ryder Medal doing that but was overlooked by the Victorian state selectors. He was then going to head back to Warragul to play locally before he was offered a promotion at work that took him to Tasmania.
From there he took 161 wickets at First Class level, at an average of 33.60.
But the plight of the Bulls’ dilapidated nets soon took centre stage following Ridgway’s presentation.
The Bulls have been battling for years to secure funding to improve the nets, which have been deemed ‘condemned’ since 2016.
There’s no way the Bulls should even be training in them, but they don’t have a choice.
Cricket Victoria did a facilities check at Cardinia three years ago, and the results – when it came to the nets – painted an incredibly damning picture. No lighting; poor quality netting; holes in the fencing; dangerous, unstable bowling run-ups; holes in the practice pitch surfaces – the works.
Now it’s beyond the stage of needing an upgrade. The club that fields sides in two of the WGCA’s first XI grades is desperate.
