Season review: Greenvale Kangaroos endure winless season but take positives

Greenvale Kangaroos endured a winless First XI season but the club is taking positives from young stars’ development, Dowling Shield and off-field stability.

Greenvale Kangaroos captain Justin Galeotti. Picture: Andy Brownbill

It was always going to be a difficult Premier Cricket season for Greenvale Kangaroos and so it proved.

The club’s First XI endured a winless campaign, as did the Third XI, the Second XI won two games but still finished last, while the Fourths were 16th.

Greenvale finished last in the club championship, a staggering 191 points behind Essendon in 17th.

Positively, the Kangaroos’ missed under-18s finals on run-rate, won two Dowling Shield matches and its top women’s team played finals in the Premier Seconds.

Director of Cricket Ash Cavigan said the season had brought stability and unearthed some good young talent.

Jordan Kosteas in action for Greenvale Kangaroos. Picture: Andy Brownbill

“Look, we achieved a few things we set out achieve, which didn’t translate into wins and losses as such,” Cavigan said.

“From our point of view it’s all about stability and setting foundations and a lot of that sat with coaching, structural stuff and junior development.

“Generally, we felt like our under-18 and Dowling teams competed strongly, won a couple of games, and more importantly we think we’ve got a couple of good young players there.

“That’s what we’re trying to do, identify young talent, bring them in, give them a good place to play cricket and bring them through together.”

Captain Justin Galeotti led the First XI run-scoring with 436 runs at an average of 29.07, ranked 23rd overall, but Bernard Kelly was next best with 308 runs – ranked 57th.

Galeotti was out for less than 10 eight times but showed once he got in could score well, making four half-centuries and falling agonisingly short of a century against Kingston Hawthorn – out for 98

Praveen Dilanka was outstanding with the ball, taking 23 wickets to be joint 18th in the competition, while promising young spinner Ivan Zmak snared 16 wickets.

“From a senior group point of view, I thought Justin Galeotti had a really good year considering, his leadership was spot on,” Cavigan said.

Odil Perera and Damith Perera batting for Greenvale Kangaroos. Picture: Andy Brownbill

“Bernard Kelly had one of his best years, he was really important for us to retain, he’s the character we want to build the group around.

“Praveen Dilanka had a great year, drives more than an hour to get to training, competes hard, he’s the type of character we want the club to have.

“Young Ivan Zmak, we played him every game and he competed strongly and has a really good future.

“Some of the other guys really stepped up, Declan Highgate put up some good numbers and played his role.

“So there were lots of ticks (on the field) and off field was much better, better socially, good numbers in on a Thursday night for a feed.”

Greenvale will now look to strengthen its squad across the board for 2024-25.

The club is adamant it can climb the ladder quickly with the right additions and natural development of its young talent.

While it is committed to developing junior talent, adding experienced First XI talent will benefit the club in the long-term.

“Now we can get aggressive with our recruiting and say we’ve got the things players need to achieve what they want to achieve,” Cavigan said.

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“As much as we want to build from the ground up, and we do, we’ll go out and get the best Dowling group we can get and good under-18 players, but at the same time we want two or three quality First XI people.

“The boys gave 100 per cent this year and it’s tough when you don’t get the reward, so we want to bring a couple in that help us get ticks in the win column.

“You can’t do these things quickly but our aim is to jump into the middle six, in terms of the ladder, as quickly as we can.

“Once you get into that type of area it helps your recruiting and helps the group because they can see we’re capable of having a crack at finals.”