University looking to fire up Shield hopes

The Toowoomba side is looking to pick up its first win of the Harding-Madsen Shield season against a tough Northsiders outfit at USQ tomorrow.

James Bidgood will be looking to get in the runs for University tomorrow.

CRICKET: A key two-game stretch at home for University is set to shape their Harding-Madsen Shield finals fortunes.

Coming off an opening-game loss to defending champions Western Districts a fortnight ago, the short nature of the five-round competition means anything less than at least one win against Ipswich-based sides Northsiders and South East will see them miss out on the finals.

Despite the urgent nature of their season and with everything on the line, captain Tully Willson said they were looking to build some momentum as they progressed through the season.

“We’ve got Northsiders at USQ which should be a tough game,” Willson said.

“They are a pretty strong team as well, so we’ll be looking to gather a bit of momentum at the start of the season.

“A couple of wins will get the team together, and if we can string a few in a row it will put us on the front foot.

“It’s good to have a few games at home too instead of having to travel to Ipswich.”

Uni has endured a range of personnel changes, with the loss of strike weapons Bryce Priebe and Andrew Johnston.

However Willson believes a number of additions to the squad have helped to offset their loss.

“We have a couple of new faces around the team,” he said.

“We’ve picked up another of the Bourke boys from Warwick, Mitch, who batted at three a fortnight ago and is pretty handy with the bat.

“Jye Wallis has come up form reserve grade, and he also batted well last week, and might even get a promotion up the order.

“We need to have that batting depth. There are plenty of sides that can put on scores of 250, so we need to be able to match that.”

As for tomorrow’s encounter with Northsiders, Willson said it will be their bowlers that need to get the job done.

“(A win) has to be with the ball,” he said.

“We need to give ourself a chance with scoring runs. It makes it hard to chase down and adds pressure if they put on a big score, so we want to switch that pressure onto them.”

Play commences between University and Northsiders tomorrow at 10am at USQ.

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