And with no Futures League competition due to cost cutting at Cricket Australia, the importance of performing at club level will never be higher.

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More than half of the nine clubs have been bolstered for the 2020-21 campaign – which kicks off this weekend – by interstate recruits, none more so than the Greater Northern Raiders.

With Tasmania’s most successful coach Tim Coyle at the helm, the Raiders have secured the services of not only former Tiger, Victorian Bushranger and Melbourne Star Evan Gulbis, but also his Carlton teammate Brayden Stepien.

Stepien, who is likely to return to Victoria if the Melbourne grade competition gets off the ground, featured for the Melbourne Renegades twice in last year’s BBL and will add another dimension to the Raiders top order.

Combined with the all-round class of Gulbis, the Raiders will be looking to make some headway in their third year in the CTPL.

“Are we putting a target on wins and losses? No. We will let that occur naturally with a focus on making sure we have a decent game plan and that individuals are continually improving,” Coyle said.

ROUND 1 FIXTURE (ONE DAY)

Clarence v Glenorchy (Kangaroo Bay)

Lindisfarne v SHSB (Anzac Park)

Kingborough v University (Twin Ovals)

Greater Northern v North Hobart (Riverside)

Bye: New Town

“He [Stepien] has been in the Futures League area in Victoria and he wanted to play cricket and we managed to get him to come over.

“It is one of those things if Victoria gets their act together and they start playing cricket over there he is probably going to go back, but we are happy to roll the dice.

“Both of them add a lot of depth to our batting, that’s been the thing we wanted to work on and improve and I expect some natural development from some of the blokes who have been around for the last couple of years.”

Clarence (Zak Elliott), Glenorchy (Matthew Fotia), University (Sam Harbinson) and New Town (Abdul Haseeb) have all welcomed Victorians to the fold.

Former state quick and dual Ricky Ponting medallist Brett Geeves has stepped back into head coaching duties at the Pies, and believes there will never be a better time for grade performances to be rewarded for higher honours with the scrapping of the Futures League.

Glenochy has added some much needed depth to its list with the recruitment of players such as Nick Davis from North Hobart and Launceston-based trio Jake Williams, Ethan Conway and Jack Young.

“What it does mean is performance, particularly individual performance, is huge and if someone can go on a burn early and score big runs or take wickets, they set themselves up really well to be the next person in,” Geeves said.

“Whoever is hot will be on Cricket Tasmania’s radar, and that’s a great thing for the comp.

“It is the first time in a while I reckon that grade cricket performance will actually see true recognition in terms of senior state selection.”

It is a view shared by University director of coaching Ben Harrison.

“Maybe the recognition of a season like Nuwan Kavinda’s last year will probably get greater recognition this season, because it will be considered that it has been played against a more frequently higher premier league competition.”

Kingborough has suffered a huge blow with last year’s Emerson Rodwell medallist Trent Keep ruled out for the season from concussion symptoms, while Clarence has lost former coach Dan Salpietro, who has moved back to Melbourne.

North Hobart coach Robb Macmillan is confident the Demons have the depth to cover the loss of Jake Doran to Uni, South Hobart-Sandy Bay has a handful of inclusions to bolster its depth while New Town landed boom Tigers recruit Peter Siddle, although he is unlikely to play many games for the Bucks.

For the second straight season everyone is chasing Lindisfarne — who completed a clean sweep of all three trophies last year — although the Lightning’s depth will be tested with not only star top order brigade Ben McDermott, Charlie Wakim and Mac Wright likely to be with the Shield squad but key bowlers Alex Bevilaqua and Sam Underhill leaving.

All clubs will be impacted by player unavailability with the start of the season overlapping with winter sport finals, while all state players will feature in round one before a 15 or 16 strong Sheffield Shield squad leaves for Adelaide next week.

CLUB BY CLUB GUIDE

CLARENCE

Coach: Harry Allanby

Captain: Harry Allanby

Last year: Fifth

Gains: Zak Elliott (Fitzroy Doncaster), Jackson Young (South Launceston)

Losses: Daniel Salpietro (Victoria)

Coach’s comment: “It [last year] was disappointing, it was one of those years where we spent nearly all of it in the four, dropped a couple of games during the season which came back to hurt us in the end. The guys are keen to make amends this season.”

GLENORCHY

Coach: Brett Geeves

Captain: Charlie Eastoe

Last year: Seventh

Gains: Matt Fotia (Ringwood, Victoria), Nick Davis (North Hobart), Jake Williams (Northern Raiders), Richie Dilger (Wellington), Ethan Conway (Launceston), Jack Young (South Launceston), Tom Blackwell (Old Beach)

Losses: Farzan Raja (Lahore Qalanders), Zac Towns (Retired), Simon Palmer (injury)

Coach’s comment: “After last year we had some work to do, culturally we weren’t in a great place and we didn’t have a lot of guys who were truly committed to cricket, the majority weren’t aspirational towards playing state cricket or going to the next level. This year I feel we have the majority wanting to progress.”

GREATER NORTHERN

Coach: Tim Coyle

Captain: Miles Barnard

Last year: Ninth

Gains: Evan Gulbis (Carlton), Brayden Stepien (Carlton)

Losses: Jake Williams (Glenorchy)

Coach’s comment: “The individual growth is what we have been working pretty hard on in the pre-season, seeing players trying to improve their skill in particular and giving them as much opportunity to work on that. Collectively as a group if we see individuals improve their skills, particularly under pressure in games, more than likely you will see some good results.”

KINGBOROUGH

Coach: Adam Maher

Captain: Tom Martyn

Last year: Third

Gains: Rhys French (Latrobe)

Losses: Trent Keep (injury), Gurinder Sandhu (Queensland)

Coach’s comment: “Continued improvement is what we are all trying to achieve. Everyone has the mindset of just trying to be better, to be better than last year, to be better than they were six months ago.”

LINDISFARNE

Coach: Matt Wilkie

Captain: Charlie Wakim

Last year: Premiers, Kookaburra Cup premiers, Twenty20 premiers

Gains: Jack Freeman (University)

Losses: Alex Bevilaqua (Western Australia), Sam Underhill (Queensland), Kieran Gilbert (Northern Territory)

Coach’s comment: “It [being the team to catch] doesn’t change much for us, we have always just focused on trying to get to a final and then anything can happen on the day. To win a few last year was great, but we had lost a few before that.”

NEW TOWN

Coach: Peter Di Venuto

Captain: Hugh Williams

Last year: Eighth

Gains: Peter Siddle (Victoria), Abdul Haseeb (Victoria)

Losses: Jordan Willoughby (Queensland)

Coach’s comment: “There was a massive improvement from last season compared to the year before, and that wasn’t shown necessarily in results, but it was in statistical data. If we have that same improvement again, then that will start to translate to more results.”

NORTH HOBART

Coach: Robb Macmillan

Captain: Caleb Jewell

Last year: Fourth

Gains: Jackson Burns (SCA)

Losses: Jake Doran (University), Nick Davis (Glenorchy)

Coach’s comment: “We are in a nice situation where most of our group are a bit more senior than we have been the last few years. The past few years we have been trying to establish who we are, hopefully we are at that point now where we can be one of the top tier teams for the next few years.”

SOUTH HOBART-SANDY BAY

Coach: Harry Nichols

Captain: Sean Willis

Last year: Second

Gains: Tom Andrews (South Australia), Sam Voss (Kingborough), Richard Baines (University), Lloyd Straatsma (Blackmans Bay), James Turnbull (Kettering), Jordan Cooper (Brighton), Alex Quinn (Melbourne),

Billy Blackett (year off)

Losses: Simon Milenko (Queensland), Kyle Wisniewski (Gold Coast), Felix Charles (year off)

Matt McConnell (Knights CC), Mark Brazendale (Knights CC), Matt Johnson (NW Coast)

Coach’s comment: “I think it is probably the best space we have been in for a couple of years, the board have done a great job in the last couple of years and from a coaching and selection point of view, we have a lot of players to pick from now.”

UNIVERSITY

Director of coaching: Ben Harrison

Captains: Andrew Kealy and Jake Doran

Last year: Sixth

Gains: Sam Harbinson (Northcote), Jake Doran (North Hobart), Tim Ward (Parramatta), Joe Logan (Northern Territory)

Losses: James Hortle (Blackmans Bay), Jack Freeman (Lindisfarne)

Coach’s comment: “We’ve made some slight changes to the way we prepared, with a greater focus on strength and conditioning in the early part of pre-season. I think it is probably our fittest group we have had for a long time and that’s enabled them to take on the core part of the skills component much better.”

adam.j.smith@news.com.au