Premier Cricket: Richmond captain Dom Matarazzo bullish group can challenge top four

It fell one match short of a grand final berth last season, but Richmond is confident it can push the best again this time around. Here’s why.

RICHMOND captain Dom Matarazzo says his club will back its existing stocks to take it the next step this season after a preliminary final berth in 2021-22.

The Tigers fell to Casey South Melbourne in the penultimate match, but a quiet off-season on the recruiting front has been driven by a sense of achievement and disappointment after falling short.

Dom Matarazzo sends one down against Casey South Melbourne. Picture: Valeriu Campan

“It’s a little bit of both, because we got so close to getting into that grand final. It showed how far we’ve come but how far we’ve still got to go and how experience wins you games of cricket,” Matarazzo said.

“We’ve not really picked up anyone … being so young it’s more (we) keep bringing them through the lower grades.”

They’ve retained most of the list with the notable exception being Kyle Viccars, who has stepped away from cricket after topping the Second XI batting with 512 runs at an average of 36.57, to go with four matches in the firsts.

Matarazzo led the way with the ball, taking 32 wickets at 11.41, while Shobit Singh (511 runs at 30.06) and Andrew Humphries (505 at 50.50, nine wickets at 30.78) were more than a handful.

Shobit Singh. Photo: Hamish Blair

All-rounders Jake Fraser-McGurk (346 runs at 28.83), Wil Parker (265 runs at 26.50 and nine wickets at 38.78) and quick Mitch Perry (18 wickets at 10.28) are all Victorian-listed and enjoyed strong campaigns last time around.

All aged under 23, the skipper believes their availabilities could vary.

“I don’t know if we’ll get much of Mitchell at all, he’s obviously pretty firmly entrenched in it,” Matarazzo said.

“I think Jake’s more of a chance to play more white-ball stuff and with Wil it depends on what Todd Murphy’s doing with Australia A because he looks like he’s jumped sort of ahead of him as that second spinner with Jon Holland.

“We might get a fair bit of Wil this year with the exception of the Big Bash period, and he was pretty crucial for us in the second half of last year batting at five and bowling 10 overs, he developed nicely and pushed our middle-order to get better and post good totals.”

Meanwhile, Yash Pednekar made an impression in the firsts with 444 runs at 27.75 – ranked third in the First XI – and young gun Reiley Mark featured heavily with the ball, snaring 16 wickets at 39.94.

Yash Pednekar. Photo: Hamish Blair

The output of the group last season has Matarazzo bullish his charges can contest a spot in the four, but the campaign holds a host of unknowns.

“We haven’t set a pass-fail on it because there’s so much new to this year, we haven’t played red-ball cricket for two years so you don’t know what other teams are going to be like … but we think we set up pretty well for red-ball cricket,” he said.

“You’d like to think guys can build on what they were able to do last year … we’re a year older, a year wiser and we know what we have to do to be successful.”