Junior cricketers make mark

Eleven Roma lads have made the Southwest Country Team.

IMPRESSIVE YEAR: A group of players from the Roma and District Junior Cricket Association stand proud. Picture: RDJCC

Cricket: Eleven Roma and District Junior Cricket Association players will represent the Southwest Country Team in the Darling Downs and Southwest Challenge Cup next year.

The DDSW Challenge Cup encompasses three regions - southeast country, southwest country and Toowoomba -which will play a home-and-away series over five weeks from on February 3.

Junior president Darryl Langton said he was extremely proud of the boys.

"It certainly is a wonderful achievement to have that many Roma boys selected in those sides,” he said.

"It's the next step in representative cricket and for a lot of these boys it'll be the first time they have actually gone away and played 50-over cricket on turf pitches.

"And out of the competition the Darling Downs squads for under-12s, U14s and U16s will be selected and then ultimately from that a squad will be selected to go to the state championships.”

Langton said it was a great credit to what is happening at the RDJCA and a number of the other junior associations across the western region.

"We've seen a real revival in junior cricket over the last few years, which is great,” he said.

"It has certainly been an impressive year for us,we have had around 30 per cent growth in junior participation numbers this year and we certainly hope that continues to come.

"Our success has come down to a combination of factors. We've had a lot of help from Queensland Cricket, we have a very strong and active committee, wonderful sponsors and we get great assistance from the community and our promotion of cricket has been great.”

U11 players: Archie Stivano, Hunter Price, Cooper Langton, Blake Kingston

U13s: Braith Lorenz, Darcy Kingston, Jackson Packer, Iva Price

U15s: Harry Packer, Angus Orchison, Luke Thompson

Originally published as Junior cricketers make mark