By ADEM SARICAOGLU
SPOTSWOOD has turned to its skipper in hope for an improved summer of cricket.
Andrew Dickinson has replaced Haydn Fletcher as senior coach after the Woodsmen were bundled out of the Victorian Turf Cricket Association’s Senior Division in disappointing fashion.
Dickinson told Star he jumped at the opportunity to take over as coach during the off-season.
“Basically the club wanted to move in a bit of a different direction and obviously after being relegated things are reviewed, so the opportunity popped up and I made myself available,” Dickinson said.
“Obviously I was captain last year so I wanted to take on the challenge to see if I could help get the club back up to where it wanted to be up in the Senior Division, so I put my hand up and the guys thought that I should give it a crack.”
Spotswood struggled to remain competitive in the VTCA’s top tier throughout the 2012-13 summer and Dickinson is keen to reverse those fortunes in the North Division this time around.
“I think it was just generally a bad year across the board,” Dickinson said.
“We had a couple of guys that had a good year with the ball and we had a couple of guys that had a good year with the bat but they didn’t have enough support, so it was a case that we didn’t have enough people contributing.
“There were only one or two guys in each game that were getting the job done and not enough were contributing to get the win, so that’s where we’ve got to get other guys involved – contributing to the win.”
The club has not yet confirmed any new signings but is actively looking to replace two key voids in the batting order left behind by Khalid Sawas and Matt Leddin – both of Spotswood’s leading batsmen last summer.
And while Dickinson knows the Woodsmen need to bolster their batting stocks, the new coach remains confident his club can turn its fortunes around and push for a finals berth this summer.
“We just want to lift our game and hopefully put ourselves in a position where we’ll play some finals cricket,” Dickinson said.“Last year it was very disappointing that we got relegated, so we just want to bounce back from that and get ourselves an opportunity to play finals.”
In a draft fixture released to clubs last week, Spotswood is due to commence its 2013-14 campaign at home against Altona North on 5 October.
