Geelong Advertiser |
THEY say footy and cricket go hand in hand. But few would immediately associate the might of the Geelong Cricket Club with the Western Eagles, a small country club west of Colac.
Yet the connection with the Cats' cricketers has been the driving force behind the Eagles' stunning rise up the CDFL ladder.
Marc Carson, one of Geelong's all-time leading wicket takers, has led the charge in bringing optimism to the success-starved club.
Carson, in his second season as coach, coaxed Cats' teammates Jake Reed, Jake and Zac Thorne, Andrew Hodgson, Rhys Burke and Justin McPhee to follow him down the Princes Highway, along with local Geelong footballers Tyson Stott, Scott Harvey and Andrew Stojanov.
"We were lucky that the requirements of cricket at a premier level meant that a few of the boys found it difficult to commit to play footy at a GFL level. And the ability to go back and play footy in the CDFL, whilst we try to be as professional as possible, was an easier option," Carson said.
"That made it easier and there's plenty of talented players who made the choice to play cricket rather than footy, so it was an untapped market and we were lucky enough for some of the boys to come down."
Carson said the club's gradual on-field improvement earning an extra win from 2011 and improving weekly deficits was the catalyst for attracting high-profile players.
"The club had been through some challenging years, obviously struggling on the field but being quite successful off the field and it was a challenge as much as anything," he said.
"It was a challenge for the boys to try and drag a side that had been a cellar dweller for a couple of seasons. It was a challenge for them to come down and commit to a program and try and win games of footy. It was something that appealed to all of them and once we got one of two of the boys to buy into it, we got a few to buy into it."
The Eagles' rapid rise has surprised the football public, but not the coach.
"I know it sounds fairly arrogant, but having seen the competition last year, we turned 80-90 point losses into 20-30 point losses plus a couple of wins and it made it easier going to players and speaking to them about what we're trying to achieve," he said.
"We realised, being in the competition last year, what did and didn't work. You need big bodies on the inside and pace on the outside and I think at any football level it's going to win you games of football."
The Eagles have not played finals for almost a decade but Carson was not getting too far ahead of himself.
"We've only won a couple of games but we're playing an exciting brand of footy and as long as we can keep doing that and enjoying our footy, hopefully we can keep winning."
