Swans ready to soar

By Paul Pickering
NEVER before has Casey-South Melbourne entered a Premier Cricket season with such optimism.
The Swans, who finally shook the cellar-dweller tag last summer on their way to a top-four finish and quarter-final appearance, are buoyant about their prospects in 2010-11.
And with good reason.
The first XI’s best result since relocation and the addition of two prized recruits has cast Casey-South Melbourne in the unfamiliar role of a contender this summer.
Somerset all-rounder and Ashes Tour hopeful Peter Trego arrives from England on Monday and will play in the Swans’ season-opening one-dayer against Dandenong at Casey Fields on Saturday.
Trego, the club’s second professional alongside skipper Damien Wright, is a hard-hitting right-hand batsman – he made a 54-ball century against Yorkshire last year – and handy right-arm seamer with almost 100 first-class matches to his name.
The former England under-19 representative, now 29, is hoping to be on hand for a call-up if the Poms need a match-hardened replacement in the shorter forms of the game this summer.
Trego developed a friendship with County team-mate Wright during the English season and, while the duo could be lethal in combination for the Swans, his value will be magnified in Wright’s absence.
“We’re pretty excited about his impending time with us,” Casey-South Melbourne coach Mark Ridgway said.
“What we lacked last year when Wrighty was playing with the Vics was that old head that doesn’t panic, and that’s what you get with Trego.”
Wright was the only Swan to average more than 30 with the bat last season, so Ridgway was desperate to shore up his batting line-up over the winter.
He believes that luring St Kilda batsman Dimitri Deane across from Junction Oval – plus continued improvement from young guns Rohan Blandford, Tom Hussey and Jake Best – will go a long way towards addressing that fragility.
Similarly, the addition of bowling all-rounder Nathan Freitag (Traralgon) and DDCA under-21 representative Justin Davis (HSD) will add depth to a dynamic bowling attack led by speedster Jayde Herrick and left-arm orthodox spinner Clive Rose.
So Ridgway is more than happy with the make-up of the senior squad he announced on Sunday.
“We’re in really good shape,” he said.“The goal (for the first XI) is to win as many games as we did last year. Nine games; if we don’t win as many as that we’ve had a poor year.”
Ridgway has likened his role with the club’s lower grades to running a crèche in recent years, but he expects to see some improvement from the seconds, thirds and fourths, which all finished in the bottom four last season.
“If we can’t get one or two teams in the lower grades into the finals we’d be disappointed,” he said.
“We took a different approach to recruiting this year. Rather than fill up from the bottom like we’ve done, we thought we needed to fill up with some top-level players to push the depth downwards.”
The club has secured sponsorship from the City of Casey for another three years and sold out of tickets for its season launch function this weekend.
“From a holistic point of view, on and off the field, the club has done a complete 360 from where it was two years ago,” Ridgway said.
“And we’re pretty excited about the season ahead.”