The Generational Malaise of South Australian Cricket.

South Australian Cricket, run by the SACA as most of us would know is one of the foundation states for what we know as the First Class system in Australia, The Sheffield Shield.
During the period with 3 competing colonies/states of 1892-1926 SA was dwarfed for success by NSW (17 titles) and Victoria (10) compared to the SACA's 3. No shame in that, it was an amateur competition where everyone had day jobs and both the other states were bigger and more populated.

Over the decades the other states have slowly entered the fray and made what we know now as our 6 state comp results have not really improved.
Since the introduction of the 6 team format in 1977-78 the redbacks have only saluted twice, 1981-82 and 1995-96. Dismal underachievement by anyone's measure.

More concerning is the sparsity of finals appearances as 3rd place finishes. In the 43 seasons with 6 competitors they have 2W, 5RU and 6x 3rd. 13 of 43 seasons in the top half of the table. Since their last success in 95-96 (25 seasons) there have been 13 last place finishes, including 8 in the last 13 seasons.

If we look at that same 6 team period and look for players who had some 'impact' on the test side, admittedly arbitrarily selected at 20 tests or more, we have:

David Hookes
Tim May
Ryan Harris (generous given he got in while at QLD)
Darren Lehmann
Greg Blewett
Wayne Phillips
Rodney Hogg
Ashley Mallett
Jason Gillespie

Travis Head does admittedly show some promise and hopefully joins that list, what sticks out is that while there is a) a very small list of notable contributors b) no generational talents which all other states have had in that time Tas: Ponting, Boon Vic: Warne WA: Gilchrist, Langer, Hussey, Martyn. QLD: Hayden, Border, Healy, Johnson. NSW: Far too many to list.

So my discussion piece is not intended as me knowing the answers, I don't. So for the regular SACA followers and guys like eth-dog corbies The Speaker etc etc is the problem within South Australian cricket fixable in the short to medium term? Has the broom been adequately swept through the system, including grassroots? Is talent ID and development up close to an acceptable standard. Or is SA Cricket systemically rooted for the foreseeable future??
 
I don't have all the information either. As an outsider it seems like there's a deeply rooted cultural problems both in administration and the playing group.

I mean they recruited Cameron White to the Strikers yet made no effort to recruit him into the state based system seems like a bizarre miscalculation. He's no world beater but the thing is, why wouldn't you try to get someone who lead Victoria to 3 shield wins, a state that has half the Shield victories of the past dozen years? Played in 4 of the previous 5 Shield victories. He wasn't a "cure-all" but he'd have given SA 2 years of help through the middle order and helped their culture a lot.
 

t_94

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In brief:

1. I reckon most significant is population. SA is only a city of 1.7 million or so simply not enough to compete with eastern states and WA.

2. Culture of losing hard to stop once it sets in.

3. The administration has been quite poor for a long time.

4. Grade cricket - not as high on the list as some would have you believe but 13 teams is too many for the population.
 
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First of all, Jason Gillespie: better cricketer than Boon, Langer, Hussey, Martyn, Hayden and Johnson.

Secondly, Karen Rolton is clearly a legend of the game. Maybe she, and the other players who have always ensured an integral SA presence in successful Aus women's teams, doesn't matter to you but it's a relevant point. If you're going to question the SACA and the state's grassroots/development system as a whole, let's look at everything they've produced.

Third, South Australia's output has pretty much always been consistent and fair for the size of its population. If any state has slipped from former greatness, it's Victoria. Once upon a time, we were in the "far too many to list" category. Who doesn't know that.
 
First of all, Jason Gillespie: better cricketer than Boon, Langer, Hussey, Martyn, Hayden and Johnson.

Secondly, Karen Rolton is clearly a legend of the game. Maybe she, and the other players who have always ensured an integral SA presence in successful Aus women's teams, doesn't matter to you but it's a relevant point. If you're going to question the SACA and the state's grassroots/development system as a whole, let's look at everything they've produced.

Third, South Australia's output has pretty much always been consistent and fair for the size of its population. If any state has slipped from former greatness, it's Victoria. Once upon a time, we were in the "far too many to list" category. Who doesn't know that.
By absolutely dominating domestic cricket for the past 15 years or so? SA have failed to produce talent for Australia and have struggled domestically for a long time.
 
By absolutely dominating domestic cricket for the past 15 years or so?
No, by producing roughly the same amount of successful Test players as SA despite wildly differing Sheffield Shield results.

Siddle very good, Pattinson wasted talent, and that's it. Not exactly Ponsford, Woodfull and Miller rising through the ranks in a 15-20 year period.
 
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South Australian Cricket, run by the SACA as most of us would know is one of the foundation states for what we know as the First Class system in Australia, The Sheffield Shield.
During the period with 3 competing colonies/states of 1892-1926 SA was dwarfed for success by NSW (17 titles) and Victoria (10) compared to the SACA's 3. No shame in that, it was an amateur competition where everyone had day jobs and both the other states were bigger and more populated.

Over the decades the other states have slowly entered the fray and made what we know now as our 6 state comp results have not really improved.
Since the introduction of the 6 team format in 1977-78 the redbacks have only saluted twice, 1981-82 and 1995-96. Dismal underachievement by anyone's measure.

More concerning is the sparsity of finals appearances as 3rd place finishes. In the 43 seasons with 6 competitors they have 2W, 5RU and 6x 3rd. 13 of 43 seasons in the top half of the table. Since their last success in 95-96 (25 seasons) there have been 13 last place finishes, including 8 in the last 13 seasons.

If we look at that same 6 team period and look for players who had some 'impact' on the test side, admittedly arbitrarily selected at 20 tests or more, we have:

David Hookes
Tim May
Ryan Harris (generous given he got in while at QLD)
Darren Lehmann
Greg Blewett
Wayne Phillips
Rodney Hogg
Ashley Mallett
Jason Gillespie

Travis Head does admittedly show some promise and hopefully joins that list, what sticks out is that while there is a) a very small list of notable contributors b) no generational talents which all other states have had in that time Tas: Ponting, Boon Vic: Warne WA: Gilchrist, Langer, Hussey, Martyn. QLD: Hayden, Border, Healy, Johnson. NSW: Far too many to list.

So my discussion piece is not intended as me knowing the answers, I don't. So for the regular SACA followers and guys like eth-dog corbies The Speaker etc etc is the problem within South Australian cricket fixable in the short to medium term? Has the broom been adequately swept through the system, including grassroots? Is talent ID and development up close to an acceptable standard. Or is SA Cricket systemically rooted for the foreseeable future??


good call but only ponting and boon have been significant from tassie (50+ tests) and warne, jones, hughes, siddle from victoria.

the last 40 years really been dominated by NSW, WA & Qld.
 
Any improvement this season or is this last place finish like most of the others, not building towards anything?


Victoria's long-term malaise has been hidden by Shield wins. South Australia has no such barrier.
the objective of sport - team or individual - is to win, and if Victoria has been winning shield titles then that means your statement is false.
 
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Any improvement this season or is this last place finish like most of the others, not building towards anything?
No improvement whatsoever. A treading water season where a new coach arrived late to join an inherited a squad that needs to be overhauled.

Supposedly a bunch of decisions have been made on a number of players on the list. I guess that needed to happen at some point but it's a shame the start of the "Dizzy era" had to be delayed by 12 months.

Also a review to revamp the grade cricket structure has also stalled. They are trying to reduce the number of clubs from 13 down to 10 but merger talks have gone nowhere yet and the individual clubs hold the voting power over the competition make up, according to the current constitution.

the objective of sport - team or individual - is to win, and if Victoria has been winning shield titles then that means your statement is false.
Shield cricket has two - at times competing - objectives. I'd be interested to know whether there was much difference in how each state ranks them in terms of importance.
 
Shield cricket has two - at times competing - objectives. I'd be interested to know whether there was much difference in how each state ranks them in terms of importance.

NSW has always had as its primary objective getting kids through the system into international cricket.
They don't have any issue throwing kids into the deep end, perform or perish. Many are spat out and end up interstate.
 

The Passenger

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South Australia had some bloody good junior cricketers about 15 years ago. The only two they decent return out of were Callum Ferguson and Mark Cosgrove. It was a terrible hit rate, and even those two probably could have achieved more.

Borgas, Bailey, Cullen, Kelly, Oswald-Jacobs are names that come to mind straight away as some good talents who bombed out. There's others as well.
 

idel one

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See Jake Carder mulling over a three year deal from SA. You would reckon the likes of him, Daniel Solway, Jason Sangha, Nathan McSweeney, Max Bryant, James Seymour would be in their sights too, and they could do worse than make a big play for the likes of Billy Stanlake, Blake Edwards, Harry Conway, Trent Copeland etc - good players not getting a regular game in their current States. They should be fine with spin if they can work with Pope etc, so bats and quicks would be on the shopping list. But the State contracting system means it could be tough to import a ready-made core of quality players. Would imagine the SA scouts should be up in Darwin for the NT's revamped winter comp as there will be some handy young talent heading there apparently.
 

toml

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See Jake Carder mulling over a three year deal from SA. You would reckon the likes of him, Daniel Solway, Jason Sangha, Nathan McSweeney, Max Bryant, James Seymour would be in their sights too, and they could do worse than make a big play for the likes of Billy Stanlake, Blake Edwards, Harry Conway, Trent Copeland etc - good players not getting a regular game in their current States. They should be fine with spin if they can work with Pope etc, so bats and quicks would be on the shopping list. But the State contracting system means it could be tough to import a ready-made core of quality players. Would imagine the SA scouts should be up in Darwin for the NT's revamped winter comp as there will be some handy young talent heading there apparently.
Sam Heazlett is another that didn't get any shield time this season that is certainly better than a few guys SA have wheeled out this season. You'd think Qld would still be happy to keep him around for the One Day Cup, but I'm sure he would like to be playing shield too
 

Crashy

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For the past seasons SA could always rely on their bowling it was the batting that let them down time after time

This year it was the bowling that was diabolical.
 

t_94

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Hearing the following won’t be there next year:

Sayers
Ferguson
Cooper
Mennie
Valente
Bosisto
Davis
Robins
Mcinerney
Drew

Speculation - Ins:

Renshaw
Conway
Carder
Gibson
Kerber
Johnson
King
Worden
Capel
?
 
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See Jake Carder mulling over a three year deal from SA. You would reckon the likes of him, Daniel Solway, Jason Sangha, Nathan McSweeney, Max Bryant, James Seymour would be in their sights too, and they could do worse than make a big play for the likes of Billy Stanlake, Blake Edwards, Harry Conway, Trent Copeland etc - good players not getting a regular game in their current States. They should be fine with spin if they can work with Pope etc, so bats and quicks would be on the shopping list. But the State contracting system means it could be tough to import a ready-made core of quality players. Would imagine the SA scouts should be up in Darwin for the NT's revamped winter comp as there will be some handy young talent heading there apparently.

3 year deal for Carder seems a bit of a risk. Renshaw and Conway would be a good start, will take me a while to warm to Conway but I'll get there. Ideally another batsman too, Heazlett would be a good get if not McSweeney. Think Gibson deserves a reasonable crack at it next year.
 

TommyD13

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Hearing the following won’t be there next year:

Sayers
Ferguson
Cooper
Mennie
Valente
Bosisto
Davis
Robins
Mcinerney
Drew

Speculation - Ins:

Renshaw
Conway
Carder
Gibson
Kerber
Johnson
King
Worden
Capel
?

Shame with Drew. Really thought he could be something and disappointing he didn’t press on this season.
 

The Passenger

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Not sure recruiting a load of interstate players is the path forward as you are really just looking at the discards from other states. Yeah you might get lucky and get someone like Jackson Bird, Joe Mennie or Ed Cowan, but those really are the exceptions, not the rule.

Got to sort things out internally first.
 
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Not sure recruiting a load of interstate players is the path forward as you are really just looking at the discards from other states. Yeah you might get lucky and get someone like Jackson Bird, Joe Mennie or Ed Cowan, but those really are the exceptions, not the rule.

Got to sort things out internally first.

I would agree in general but they didn't win a game across both competitions. That's extra bad when they have had Head and Carey for a lot of this season. Baby steps for SA. Better off trying to steal a young player or two than outright discards and then some proven experience at the end of their careers (as per my Siddle comment earlier) to make them competitive for a year or two while the others develop.
 
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The worry is that those not good enough to succeed at Shield level - Drew, Lehmann, Davis, Winter, Valente - absolutely carve up at Grade level.

They are better than the local alternatives

Means looking interstate is the only option
 
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