Tamworth under-14s co-coach Barry Pratten says this week’s Tamworth Invitational Carnival will be a good gauge of what the team is made of.
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The ‘Blue’ as they play as in the Northern Inland competition are currently undefeated, and in their most recent outing hammered Gunnedah by 190 runs.
They will though be missing star trio Charlie Henderson, Ben Livingstone and Sam Anderson, who are in Albury with the Central North Kookaburra Cup side.
Angus Gale, Rory Morris and Will Doyle have come in for them.
Tamworth sides have performed well at their home carnival in recent years, taking it out two years ago and finishing runners-up last year, and Pratten and Craig Baker will be hoping to at least make the semi-finals.
“We’ve got the nucleus of a good side but we’ll be up against some good cricketers too,” Pratten said.
“If we can make the semi-finals – that’s our expectations at this stage.”
It is though a bit of an unknown.
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Aside from obviously Armidale, and Manly who they played at the Ballina carnival last year, they haven’t faced the others sides before, or know much about them.
This year’s carnival will feature a couple of new sides including a couple of Queensland sides.
South West Queensland and Gold Coast are both making the trip south.
“It’s great to have them involved,” carnival convenor Simon Hood said.
It’s the first time in his eight years running the carnival they have had Queensland teams competing.
“There’s a good mix of teams. There’s the Queensland teams, a couple of Sydney teams, a coastal team and then Tamworth and Armidale,” Hood said.
The opening day action will see Manly taking on Armidale (Riverside 1), Lismore playing South East Queensland (Riverside 5), the hosts clashing with West Pennant Hills (Riverside 2) and the Gold Coast facing the Invitational side, which is comprised of players from Gunnedah, Armidale and Tamworth.
It will be a busy week for Tamworth’s junior representative sides with the under-12s heading to Lismore, the under-13s Ballina and the under-16s Taree.
Tamworth under-14s: Adam Williams, Ben Chick, Nick Mead, Sam Murphy, Deni Baker, Isobelle Cameron, Heramb Dayananda, Nathaniel Follington, Sam Sleeman, Angus Gale, Rory Morris, Will Doyle.
