MPCA club Langwarrin secures Brighton VSDCA champion Ricky Damiano

Player moves don’t get much bigger, with a Subbies run machine signing with a Mornington Peninsula club. He talks about the switch and reveals a burning ambition.

Simon McEvoy

3 min read

April 12, 2024 - 7:00AM

News Corp Australia Sports Newsroom

Ricky Damiano batting for Brighton. He’s joined Langwarrin in the MPCA.

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It happened swiftly.

Brighton champion Ricky Damiano was in the midst of the VSDCA finals a few weeks ago when he received a text message from Langwarrin Cricket Club.

It got him thinking.

Once his season finished, Damiano met with Langwarrin officials and went on a tour of the club’s new facilities at Lloyd Park.

Soon after, he signed on.

“I got a message the first day of my semi-final and I sort of let it go for a while and then had a think about it and thought, ‘look, I’m up for a new challenge’,’’ Damiano said.

“I met with the (Langwarrin) boys and I generally make decisions pretty quickly, so I made a decision.’’

Damiano to Langwarrin is arguably the biggest recruiting coup in the Mornington Peninsula Cricket Association since Simon Dart and Nick Jewell joined the competition over a decade ago.

Ricky Damiano celebrates a century.

Rick the run machine.

He’s a great of the Victorian Sub-District Cricket Association, the maker of the most centuries in its history — 23 tons (10 at Caulfield and 13 at Brighton).

In 2021, after Damiano scored his 20th century to move past legendary batsman Val Holten, VSDCA president Phil O’Meara said he was one of the best players he had seen in Sub-District cricket and was “entering hall of fame territory’’.

“He’s an attacking batsman and he’s a matchwinner,’’ O’Meara said. “He’s always good to watch.’’

Damiano said it wasn’t a hard decision to leave Subbies, a competition he will be forever held in the highest regard, but it was a tougher call to leave Brighton.

“I’ve loved my time at Brighton, love the blokes, it’s the best place I’ve played at,’’ he said.

“My brother (John) is president there, he was coach last year so that’s obviously the main reasons.

“Records don’t bother me too much to be honest. I’ve loved playing in a competition and being successful. I would have liked to have been more successful in terms of premierships. Individual success doesn’t bother me too much.’’

Damiano, who teaches at a local primary school, did his homework on Langwarrin.

“I spoke to quite a few people around the competition about Langwarrin and what the team was like,’’ he said.

“Everyone I spoke to said how professional the club was.

“How they went about it is something that I treasure just in terms of being professional and playing the game in a certain way, playing it pretty tough.’’

Langwarrin players celebrate a wicket.

Damiano said he would perform at his “very best’’ at Langwarrin, which boasts reigning four-time Wedgwood medallist Matt Prosser.

“From my perspective I just want to perform well for the club,’’ he said.

“The (Langwarrin) boys said to me, ‘we want someone to lead the club and be a good leader, don’t worry about performances too much’, but personally I’m pretty driven so I’ll be making sure that I perform my very best when I’m at the club. That’s the challenge — I want to perform for the club and get success.

“I’ve done a bit of research into how many youngsters are in the club. They’ve been very close to winning it over the last few years so my biggest challenge is to take us from semi finalists to grand finalists and winning it. That’s what I’m setting myself.’’

As for the reaction of his Brighton teammates and friends to the news he was playing elsewhere, Damiano said they’d been fully supportive.

“It’s been great,’’ he said.

“I’ve given everything to the club over the seven years, it’s my junior club, my nephews are there, my brother’s there.

“They’ve said to me, ‘go and enjoy the new challenge’, so I’ve been pretty happy with the response.’’

Damiano has always played on turf pitches but will be confronted with a new challenge in the MPCA — synthetic pitches.

“I’ll be having a lot of hits on syntho during the off season,’’ he said.

RICKY DAMIANO BY THE TON

AT CAULFIELD

143 v Kingston Saints 2013/2014

133 v Roxburgh Park/Broadmeadows 2012/2013

129 v Hoppers Crossing 2015/2016

117 v Ormond 2013/2014