Narrabri Sporties hosted the Narrabri District Cricket Association’s 2019-20 Coates Hire Namoi Super Slog T20 competition auction night on Friday night.
The event saw the four franchises – Rose Pest Control, Priag Marketing, Carla Baxter Real Estate and Specialised Civil Services – all draft their teams for the
Super Slog which begins on Friday, December 13 with its round one matches.
On the night each franchise was given a $10 million salary cap from which the respective franchise’s captain and name sponsor representatives had to draft 14 players to complete their teams.
When a player’s name was called out each franchise and their captain had 60 seconds to decide what portion of their salary cap they would offer to spend on that player.
The franchise with the highest bid on a player had that player added to their roster, and their price was then subtracted from that team’s salary cap.
Players were drawn out in seven pools of eight names, to allow the franchises to reassess their budgets during the intervals.
The first player drawn out on the night was Civeo’s Jade Lees who was taken by his Civeo captain Lachlan Cameron for the Priag Marketing team for $700,000.
The first million dollar player in the auction was RSL and NDCA War Vets Cup player Jake Brayshaw who went for $2,000,000 to Rose Pest Control.
Brayshaw was the sixth player drafted and remained the most expensive player until number 28 when a $2,400,000 bid saw Priag Marketing score the services of Western Imperial Razorbacks and NDCA War Vets Cup young gun Dylan Smith.
That was overtaken with the second last (55th) pick of the night which saw Western Imperial Razorbacks’ Justin Knight go to Carla Baxter Real Estate for $3,898,180.
However the biggest bid of the night was $4,912,780 which was spent on Civeo’s Nick Smart by Specialised Civil Services.
The Courier spoke to all four captains following the auction night who were all pleased with their rosters.
Rose Pest Control skipper Ty Baker said that he thought that all four sides were strong, but his had what it would take to win the competition.
“All four teams are pretty good across the board so it will be a tight competition, all four sides have got their strengths and weaknesses,” said Baker, who is also the NDCA’s MA Connolly Cup captain and the president of the Western Imperial Razorbacks club.
“I definitely think we’ve got the side there to get the job done.
“We have a young side, excluding a couple of blokes, but I reckon that we have a really good side on paper.
“One thing I’m confident about is our fielding. Fielding is very important in T20 cricket and I think we have got a really good side there in the field.”
Baker said that he was excited about the competition starting as he looked forward to playing with new players, as well as taking on some of his Razorbacks clubmates.
“I thought this competition was an awesome idea for those reasons,” he said.
“It’s good for us Razorbacks blokes to mingle with all the Narrabri boys, which I’ve noticed while we’ve been playing in the districts sides too.
“I think getting to play against our (Razorbacks) boys is just awesome.
“I’m really keen to get amongst it, I think there’ll be a fair bit of banter.”
Baker said that he expected Nick Tomlinson to star with the bat for Rose Pest Control and Brock Schwager to excel with the ball.
“I really wanted both of those guys,” Baker said.
“Nick Tomo is really underrated with the bat and he is an outstanding fielder.
“Brock is bowling really well at the moment and if he gets going and gets a few early wickets in the competition I think he’ll be really tough to handle.
Baker added that his Rose Pest Control teammates Toby Reynolds ($300,000) and Joel Hogan ($200,000) were both steals and that both would have big impacts for the side.
Baker said that he and Rose Pest Control representative Josh Rose worked well together on the night.
“Josh gave me a fair bit of responsibility, there was a few players he really wanted but apart from that it was 50/50,” Baker said.
“We sort of tried to pick a side during the week but that got knocked on the head early so we basically winged it.
“We chose four players that we really wanted which were Ryan (O’Neill), Nick Tomo (Tomlinson), Jake Brayshaw and Dougy (Jay Hall) and we got three of them so that was a good result.”
Carla Baxter Real Estate captain Tom Craig said that he was pleased with the roster that he had constructed.
“We had a bit of a strategy, Carla and I spent a bit of time talking about players that we wanted to buy,” Craig said.
“Carla really wanted Brock Schwager but I missed out on him, he got taken for about $2.2 million which was way out of my budget.
“We really wanted a fair bit of youth and we got that.
“We’ve got young energetic cricketers, good fielders who can throw a cricket ball.
“I’m really happy with our team, Ryan Steel is our weakest link and he’s a gun.
“I feel that we’ve got 15 blokes that can all bat and bowl.
“In T20 I don’t know if it’s a game for specialist bowlers, and slow bowlers always seem to have success in T20 in Narrabri and we’ve got a few of those.”
Craig said that he was excited to lead a group of players from the four different NDCA clubs.
“That’s what this is all about, players coming together from different banners,” Craig said.
“This competition will unite all of the association’s players, I’m definitely looking forward to playing with some different players and I think we’ve got a very good group.”
Craig said that he thought that Razorbacks youngster Zack Doring and was one of the steals of the night, labelling him as underrated at a $100,100 price tag.
Craig added that he expected Justin Knight to succeed with the bat in the Super Slog competition, and that with the ball it would be more of a combined effort rather that one bowler taking most of the wickets.
Another captain pleased with his player roster was Priag Marketing’s Lachlan Cameron.
“I thought it was funny that I had $3.8million left over and I was still very happy with how my team turned out,” Cameron said.
“The whole thing was a learning experience, I saved that room in the cap to try and get Nick Smart or Justin Knight at the end there but missed out on both of them.
“But the blokes I ended up with I’m happy with.
“We’ve got three districts bowlers and two former districts bowlers.
“Also of the five Northern Inland Bolters representatives available we’ve got three of them including the captain.
“We’ve got an Australian Country player in Tom Groth and a lot of handy allrounders.
“I reckon Josh Trindall is one of the best T20 players in town and we got him which I was pleased about.
“We’ve got guys like Nathan Trindall, Jade Lees and Jordyn Mowle, guys that can handle a bat pretty well in that middle order and can bowl as well.
“We’ve also got our $2.4 million dollar man Dylan Smith who will do some damage from the bowler’s end.
“He was a guy I identified right from the start that I wanted so I was really happy with getting him.”
Cameron said that he thought that Razorbacks youngsters Angus Galagher and Clay Hoffman were steals on the night and were handy additions to his roster.
Specialised Civil Services also drafted a strong team on the night and skipper Craig Gleeson was stoked with the squad he ended up with.
He was not present on the night but sent Tatts teammate Rod Kirk as a representative alongside Specialised Civil Services’ Ross McClure.
“We had a bit of communication on the night and we talked about it
before hand,” Gleeson said.
“We grouped a few batters, a few bowlers and a few all rounders together who we wanted and we targeted getting at least one from each group to build the squad around.
“We were very happy to pick up Smarty (Nick Smart) I think everyone was after him.
“He’s a pretty handy cricketer and the class bat in town so I think we were very fortunate to get him, I expect pretty big things from him to be honest.
“Another player that we wanted who we got was Sarge (Chris Sargent) whose experience is valuable in those games.
“We also got Jay Hall who was one of the bowlers we wanted, we thought he was a very good option, especially being so good in the field.”
Gleeson said that he, Kirk and McClure had assembled a side of players who would enjoy playing alongside one another.
“We got some handy guys like Daniel Hamilton, Jake Thurston, Daniel Kahl and Shane Robinson, good cricketers but also good blokes,” Gleeson said.
“That’s something that we talked about, about being a bunch of blokes who want to be around each other and enjoy playing cricket together.
“We got some good blokes at good prices.
“DK (Daniel Kahl) at just $110,00 was a great pick up, he’s really handy in the field and he’s a guy you can bat around.”
A complete player list from the auction night, in the order in which they were auctioned on, can be found on The Courier’s website.
The full squad lists are as follows:
Rose Pest Control: Ty Baker (c), Joel Hogan, Brendon Smith, Jake Brayshaw, Shane Murphy, Michael Morgan, Michael Smart, Guy Gleeson, Toby Reynolds, Steve Phelps, Dylan Segundo, Nick Tomlinson, Ryan O’Neill, Michael Hewett, Brock Schwager.
Priag Marketing: Lachlan Cameron (c), Jade Lees, Josh Trindall, Clay Hoffman, Jordyn Mowle, Angus Galagher, Asher Azam, Dylan Smith, Luke Baker, Mitch Foster, Nathan Trindall, Tom Groth, Jye Manton, Lachlan Woolford, Chris Watkins.
Specialised Civil Services: Craig Gleeson (c), Daniel Hamilton, Daniel Hughes, Luke Meppem, Eben Botha, Chris Sargent, Jake Thurston, Jonty Schwager, Hadley Sevil, Daniel Kahl, Jay Hall, Shane Robinson, Jakeb Nipperess, Waldo Botha, Nick Smart.
Carla Baxter Real Estate: Tom Craig (c), Alistair Hillard, Luke Morgan, Matt Conroy, Cody Kember, Tim Hayne, Luke Barton, Zack Doring, Jarrett Tough, Jock Small, Cooper Brayshaw, Hamish Duncan, Tim Shields, Justin Knight, Ryan Steel.
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