The Examiner's Ben Hann and Brian Allen unpack and discuss sports news from across Northern Tasmania.
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00:00Welcome one and all to another episode of The Press Box, episode 71. My name's Ben Hamm,
00:12joined alongside me is Josh Partridge, who will just be these two very cute faces for
00:17the remainder of the year with Brian out with paternity leave. And with no further to do,
00:22we'll start off with everyone's favourite lead-in segment, numerology.
00:27This one, Josh can attest to this, was a bit of a battle to get this one up.
00:37This 70 is a stretch.
00:39We had to do a little bit of manoeuvring, but we got there in the end. So Josh,
00:44did you know that 71 is an important number in Tasmanian sport? Because the average games per
00:51season in the AFL for Ari Schoenmaker, Toby Nancurvis, Ryan Mansell, Nick Riewoldt and
00:57Jack Riewoldt adds up to 71.
01:01Well, utmost importance. Thanks, Ben. I can sleep better tonight knowing that you've told me that.
01:06Oh, it's all downhill from here, unfortunately. No, we do have a pretty big show for you guys
01:10today. Obviously, the big news coming out of northern sport right now is that a pretty
01:16historic decision has been made by the Cricket North board to remove the first-grade three-day
01:23grand final from the NTCA complex. I was reliably told by Mr. Jane Selby that it was not the first
01:29time it's been moved from NTCA number one, but it is unprecedented that the game is being played
01:36outside of the NTCA complex being moved, of course, to Mowbray's Invermere Park. Josh,
01:42we were out there speaking to Mowbray Scott Plummer. Pretty big day.
01:47Yeah, I think it is. And I think, given that Mowbray, it's really reliable, Mowbray. I think
01:54we both play cricket. It's pretty obvious that. But I suppose the deck's always pretty reliable.
02:00The outfield is brilliant, given that it's pretty similar to Utah's stadium over the road.
02:07Yeah, I mean, it's what probably needed to happen.
02:11Yeah, obviously, there could be some further things happening in the future. But for now,
02:17this is just a one-off event. You're right, the combination of the outfield and the pitch
02:22probably makes it the best surface in Cricket North. And I suppose that leads us on to the
02:29other, probably the landmark, the segment everyone tunes in to watch, Haney's Hard Hitters.
02:41So with that in mind, I think we got a little glitched there, but
02:45do you think moving the grand final venue was a good thing?
02:49I'll actually answer this question in a long-term prospect, as opposed to just a one-year thing,
02:53to make it a bit more of a harder hitter. I think it needed to be done for at least the one year to
03:00show what the event was capable of. I think, without any disrespect to Lonseston and the
03:07previous hosts, I think it's just been something that's just happened for the last however many
03:12years. And I think Mowbray are going to really try and unlock the full potential of what the
03:16day could bring. So yeah, I think it certainly needed to happen. And I think it's going to
03:22bring some life into the competition, which it's been stagnant for a little bit, I think,
03:27as we can say that as players, that the competition has been stagnant for the last couple of years.
03:32So I think, yeah, I think it's a good move. Yeah, obviously somebody played in that grand
03:36final last year. I did think the pitch was just a bit slow and a bit tired. As I said,
03:42I don't mean to be criticising the groundsmen who do a great job, but it just isn't the best
03:48surface at the moment. And probably the ground, which is in need, and they've obviously pitched
03:54this for a long time, there's a need for a bit of an upgrade. It probably isn't the sort of
03:59the spectacle NTCN number one as what it used to be. And to be honest, I hope that this is almost
04:04the spark to actually get that funding from government to really revamp that venue. Because
04:09I think when it gets to what it probably should be, we'd be more than happy to move it all back
04:15there again. And yeah, it deserves an upgrade, that venue, and hopefully maybe this is the
04:21catalyst for that. We will move on to what happened on the weekend, though, in Cricket North.
04:29It was one really great, high-quality game, NTCA number two, Josh. Two really good sides going at it.
04:37Yeah, it was Westbury were playing their first game of the year. They had to buy round one, the
04:41reigning premiers. Triple winners. Yeah, I was trying to think of what they'd done, so thank you
04:46very much. They played South Launceston and a quality knock by South Launceston's Nathan
04:52Phillip got them over the line. He scored 100 on the dot. It was quite interesting. I was speaking
04:57to some Westbury players during the game and kind of thinking, oh, you boys are on top here.
05:02Some of them said, well, we've got to wait until we get Nathan out, don't we? And obviously,
05:07they didn't get him out and he won the game for them, so it just shows what kind of player he is.
05:12And in the other game, Riverside got the win over Launceston, led by Pete New, Captain Coach.
05:18He scored 60. 60. Ben Kidd scored 70. And the spinners, Ludwig Onkemira and Caden Upton,
05:27both took three. Yeah, no, obviously, it was a bit of a spinning deck that day. I did speak to Nathan
05:32after the game, even Captain Jeremy Jackson as well, and they both said, look, maybe in the past
05:36we might not have won that sort of close game against a high quality opposition, but, you know,
05:41they've just found a way of seeing Phillip being so instrumental to that. And they, even I think
05:45Phillip reckoned they dropped eight catches and his two runouts, so they could have even won by
05:51more. So, I think a really positive start for the Knights there. It wasn't just them, though,
05:58in action. Obviously, the Raiders were playing out at Riverside, Josh. A pretty remarkable performance.
06:03Yeah, record breaking for the Raiders. So, in their, I think it's seven or eight year history
06:07now, it was their biggest one day total. They made 321, and it was their biggest one day win,
06:13which was 218, and they hit 13 sixes in the match. So, five of them came off one Billy
06:19Stanlake over. Billy Stanlake, former Australian international, hit 56 off just 22 balls at the
06:26lower tail end. Yeah, and he was, they weren't slogs either. He hit one shot over deep mid wicket
06:34in that 5-6 over, and then the rest was straight down the ground. They were classic cricket shots
06:38and just showed, I guess, what playing at that top calibre, when you come down a few levels,
06:43it shows what you can do, whether you are a batter or a bowler, I guess.
06:46Yeah, I think the win was made especially impressive with the fact that a lot of the
06:50contributors were young. You look at Tom Dyer, made 72. Young Caleb Brewer took two or three
06:57wickets. There were a lot of contributions. Braden DeVries as well. Braden DeVries is very
07:01young from the North West Coast. He made 50. So, yeah, it's really the aim of the Raiders program,
07:07really, is to get the young kids coming through and showing what they can do at the top level.
07:11Really exciting. Got Aidan O'Connor to come back in. We'll move on to football. It may not be any
07:17games going at the moment, but there's still plenty happening. We've been right in the middle
07:22of it. Plenty of player movement, plenty of coach movement. Josh, you've been talking to Casey
07:26Curtis. Yeah, so Longford's Casey Curtis, who captained the side this year. He's taken over
07:31as their coach for next year. So, he just said that he was just the right age for it now. He felt
07:36the right maturity and all that kind of thing. So, yeah, it'll be very interesting to see how
07:40he goes. He takes over the side that was runner-up in the NCA Premier this year. So, when they move
07:47into this new comp, he's very interested to see how they stack up against North and Lonnie,
07:51especially with him having come from North Lonnie as a product of their junior system. He's, yeah,
07:56pretty interested to see how they can go. Well, it's a great start for Longford. Like, you look
08:00at that top division, there's so much uncertainty about what's going on. The pro deserves almost
08:05its own episode, what's going on in that top division. But just to have the coaches beating
08:09some teams, or the majority of the league, pretty much. But it's been a bit more organized,
08:15almost weirdly. In that bottom division, we've got new signings, players and coaches. You were
08:22probably a bit worried that the bottom division would get stripped of all their players and assets
08:26to the higher divisions. But it's probably turning out the other way. Bridport, I did a story on
08:31yesterday. There's also been positive moves from Evendale, East Coast, Perth have retained almost
08:37all their list. It's been very positive to see. But probably almost the most action-packed has
08:43been that middle division with the potential movement that was ended up declined by Bridge
08:49North between Bridge North and Deloraine. Yeah, I think, yeah, so that was a massive end to last
08:55week when we got the news that Deloraine were almost giving their marching orders effectively
09:00by the NTFA. But Bridge North, due to the fact that I think they've been preparing to play in
09:07that middle division and they've lost the likes of Jake and Jaden Hines, Dylan Farquhar, who they
09:11actually said to go to Launceston because it would progress his footy, it would seem
09:15counterintuitive for them, Bridge North, to come in and play against him after preparing. So I think
09:22it's the right decision made by Bridge North in the end. I think given how they've structured
09:28already for next year, we're only a couple of weeks out from the grand final. Yeah, it's a
09:34rough choice. It is. I think it's a little disappointing. I think for every party involved
09:38that we've even had to consider this. But that's the position that they're in now and they're
09:43going to have to, the league and obviously Deloraine as well, are going to have to find a way
09:47out of that solution. And time will tell. That's all the time we have for today. We'll join you
09:54guys again for the next one.
10:08Bye.