RED CLIFFS Cricket Association will rekindle an old rivalry this weekend with a representative game against the Barrier District Cricket League on Sunday in Broken Hill.
When Bendigo Country Week, the RCCA’s usual representative commitment, fell by the wayside due to the COVID-19 pandemic, board member Geoff Christensen said the association needed to act to fill the void.
“What happened with Bendigo (Country Week) going, we were pretty disappointed about that,” Christensen said.
“I contacted the Riverland and Broken Hill because back in the ’60s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s we used to play Broken Hill every year.
“Rather than a representative side we used to have some alignment with South Broken Hill, I think Sunraysia may have historically played Broken Hill, they played the district and we played South Broken Hill.”
A 40-over game is planned from 12.30pm CDST, which may change to an earlier start due to the heat.
“(Barrier and District) are keen as mustard, Riverland would have but they have got their South Australian Country Week the week after so they didn’t want to stack them on top of each other,” Christensen said.
“They asked us could we go up there for the first year and they would come down for the following year – I said no problem because we were the ones looking for a game.”
Christensen said the RCCA was prepared to work around any other representative commitments next year.
“We’re hoping Bendigo Country Week comes on again next year, which is the third week of January,” he said.
“We’d move the Broken Hill game to earlier in the season.”
Christensen said the RCCA was pleased with the team it was able to put together, even with some players unavailable.
“It never works out that you get everybody you initially want but we’ve got a competitive squad and we are quite happy with it,” he said.
The RCCA team is: Nic Monaghan (Tempy), Luke Collett, Shannon Bowen, Mitch Shaw (Nursery Ridge), Scottie Clark, Chris Clark, Shannon Anthony, Tim Plumridge (Millewa), Travis Landells (South West), Lachlan Rohde (Fire Brigade) and Peter Jory (Cardross). The match will be live scored on MyCricket.
