Geelong junior country week cancelled in 2022

A mainstay of the local cricket scene, junior country week will not take place this summer and long-time coordinator Dennis Davie is worried it may never recover.

LONG-TIME former country week boss Dennis Davie fears the annual junior cricket carnival will never be the same after it was cancelled this summer.

The week-long January tournament often draws in more than 400 local players but was axed this season when the Geelong Junior Cricket Association couldn’t find a volunteer to run it.

Davie was the country week co-ordinator for 14 years and he said he couldn’t remember a year the week wasn’t played in more than half a century.

Jack Halliday batting during last year’s country week. picture: Glenn Ferguson

The former administrator said it was likely the 2023 carnival would have its numbers impacted now that the tradition has been interrupted.

“There is no doubt about that,” he said.

“It’s been a tradition in Geelong cricket and the kids love it.

“It’s a lot of fun for the kids. It is a bit of hard yakka for the volunteers but at the end of the day, it’s been great for the kids.

“The clubs need to embrace it going forward.”

The axing of the tournament impacts players outside of the Geelong region, with Colac & District Cricket Association’s representative junior sides having to tear up its fixture plans.

CDCA’s junior chair Anthony Bright said his association only found out that Geelong was cancelling next month’s event once it was reported in the Geelong Advertiser.

The Association had informed 53 players and families of where they would be playing next month before Geelong pulled out.

Ben Zygunt lets one go during country week. Picture: Alison Wynd

The CDCA still plans to play under-13s against a Geelong side, while its under-15s may be limited to just playing against teams from the Bellarine Peninsula Cricket Association.

“It’s disappointing for all the kids and all the families and it’s disappointing too because it’s going to be hard to recreate it,” Bright said.

“While the kids are in the system, they are in the system. But once they drop out it is hard to get them back and into it again.

“I have talked to the Bellarine and they believe they will have enough kids available that we can run a three or four day competition between ourselves but in terms of the Geelong kids, that is a huge loss.”

The GJCA remains on the hunt for a co-ordinator to ensure the 2023 country week can take place after Glen Potter vacated the role last summer, and asked clubs for 12 months before shutting down the carnival.

“I’m not blaming Geelong, it’s a massive task that ‘Pots’ and Dennis have done over the past few years,” bright said.

“You can’t downplay the work they have done but they just needed a volunteer to step up in the absence of those guys.”

LACK OF CO-ORDINATOR MEANS COUNTRY WEEK IS CANCELLED

HUNDREDS of junior cricketers will be left out of action next month after Geelong’s junior country week was cancelled for the first time in recent memory.

Geelong Junior Cricket Association chair Werner Weigl said he was “bitterly disappointed” to pull the plug on the annual event that attracts more than 300 players after failing to find a co-ordinator.

Weigl said the GJCA committee pleaded with junior co-ordinators from clubs across the region for 12 months to find a person who could run the January competition, after previous co-ordinator Glen Potter vacated the role.

Action in an under-17 game in 2019 country week. Picture: Peter Ristevski

The volunteer position requires someone to place players into about 30 teams, create divisions and fixtures, secure grounds and deal with inputting scores into mycricket.

With nobody willing to put their hand up for the role – and the GJCA unable to run country week without an organiser – Weigl said there was no choice but to can the week-long carnival.

“We had been foreshadowing it to clubs since the end of last year that we were looking for a country week co-ordinator and every consequent junior co-ordinator meeting we raised it and implored clubs to see if they could find a volunteer to help us out,” he said.

“We are pretty bitterly disappointed by it but I think it is just a reflection of the times where I get the impression there is a lot of volunteer fatigue out there generally in the community.

“We are pretty confident it will be back on in January 2023.”

Oskar Walter batting in 2017 country week. Picture: Jay Town

Weigl said 2022 would mark the first time the carnival wasn’t played in his 20 years involved in junior cricket.

He said while the week would have gone ahead if a co-ordinator was found, it was likely there would have been reduced numbers given parents are keen to spend the new year break travelling.

The looming boom in Covid numbers as the Omicron variant continues to spread could have also wreaked havoc on the competition.

“Some of the feedback we got from clubs was that parents were also planning on going on holidays and using the opportunity to go to regional Victoria or whatever the case may be as opposed to playing junior country week,” Weigl said.

Originally published as Geelong junior country week cancelled in 2022