Armidale District Cricket Association’s season starts this Saturday with several teams playing in the limited overs matches.
The first grade competition has expanded from four teams to five this year with the Barbarians moving up.
The club is an incarnation of YCW and then St Kilda and has been in existence as Barbarians for four years. Previously though they’ve only ever played second and third grade.
“This is our first crack at it,” skipper Brad Rafferty said.
“We’re just trying to build our club. We got a couple of young fellas coming through and a few old fellas are pretty handy.”
“Hopefully we can be competitive.”
They take on City at the Sportsground on Saturday while Easts play Ex-Services at Lambert Park.
Easts head into the season with some big holes to plug after a big rollover of players from the side that finished minor premiers last season.
“We’ve had six people retire and one injured himself playing soccer. That’s seven blokes out from the grand final side,” skipper Sam Uphill said,
“We’ll have to all chip in and not rely on one or two players.”
He said Servies are always a tough side, and isn’t expecting things to be any different on Saturday, even with the undertstanding that they will be missing their two strike bowlers from last season.
