Hornets Premier Pathway Season Preview

The Lord Taverners and Brisbane Metro Cup program marked a fresh beginning, kicking off as most others were wrapping up their seasons. Trials commenced in February, and squad announcements followed in March. After an impressive five-year tenure, Premiership-winning coach Graham Power passed the torch to a new coaching team. Simon Emmerson, his former assistant, assumed the role of head coach, with Gerard Sippel as Assistant Coach, Joe Plater as Manager, Michael Hillier overseeing high performance and culture, and Brian Andrews and Grant Ebbers as BMC coaches.

Early preseason stages emphasized team bonding, with activities such as a day out bowling in April and the annual preseason camp held in July. An important addition to the preseason program was the inclusion of Outside The Locker Room mental health and resilience training. In June, a two-hour mental health presentation was conducted at Ipswich Grammar, involving both U17 male and female players. In August, another session took place at Ivor Marsden, focusing on building resilience.

As school term 3 began, the program shifted its focus towards cricket skills development, featuring a series of warm-up matches throughout August. Both the Taverners and BMC teams had solid encounters against Wests and Souths initially. This was followed by a coastal trip to face off against the Taverners squad and concluded with home trials against DDSWQ (Tavs) and Logan (BMC). Playing warm-up games can be compared to tasting fine wine and spiting it out, fortunately, the lads performed exceptionally well in all these matches. They are now fully prepared for Round 1 this weekend, ready to compete for those valuable competition points.

Players to watch;

Aayan Latif Lord Taverners, aggressive top order batsman and leg spin bowler. A true strike force with who Sam win the game with either bat or ball

Charles Lachmund Lord Taverners, fast bowler with genuine pace. Having recently made his Hornets premier 2nd grade debut Charles offer intimidation and true class with the ball.

Lachlan Cullen BMC, coming down to Ipswich from South Burnett Lachlan has been the surprise packet of the squad. He performance in the warm up games have been outstanding and if continued will not only dominate the BMC competition but he sure to be applying pressure of selectors for a Lord Taverners Promotion.

Matt Geldard BMC, another with Wide Bay origins. A powerful top order batsman with the heart of Phar lap. Outstanding performances across the trials while battling injuries. Can’t wait to see what he can produce as he recovers to full fitness.

Round 1 teams;

Lord Taverners v Norths at Ian Healy oval Sunday September 10th 9:30am

Jack Hillier (c), Joe Sippel (vc), Noah Plater (vc), Aayan Latif, Rohan Brady, Ryan Hines, Luke Shepard, Drew Stafford, Colby Rudd, Jett Emmerson, Charles Lachmund, Patrick Rose.

BMC v RCI north at Ivor Marsden 4 Sunday September 10th 8:30am

Harry Freiberg (c), Jaxon Hohl (c), Ryan Wethethsinghe, Matt Geldard, Lachlan Cullen, Samson Noffke, Oscar Dioth, Clancy Hardy, Sam Morris, Henry Shepley, Malachi Foster and Robert McLure.