Paul Wilson's Postcards

SATURDAY 14 October 2000
Paul Wilson sees signs of good things ahead from the Redbacks' opening to the season

"Winning is not a sometime thing; it's an all time thing. You don't win once in a while, you don't do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing."
- VINCE LOMBARDI - NFL Hall of Fame Coach

This quote, among many, best sums up the Redbacks' performance in recent times. We have produced some outstanding games interlaced with some pretty disappointing ones over the past two to three years, which led to the players and the coaching staff sitting down and mapping out some key areas for improvement at the start of the pre season. These areas I can not divulge or I will have to kill you!!

This year's pre-season was as tough as I have encountered in my time attempting to play this great game. It was co-ordinated by our Assistant Coach and former Redback great, Tim Nielsen, and our newly appointed Player Conditioning Manager, Rob Hunt.

Before we commenced this arduous program, some new players were welcomed to the Redbacks' web. Ryan Harris from Northern Districts, Daniel Harris from Woodville and Luke Williams from Adelaide (the latter an AIS Scholar). These guys not only bring excellent potential but great enthusiasm to the squad which is always needed in any team.

With the pre-season under way, the Redbacks were undertaking swim sessions at the Adelaide Aquatic Centre, weight sessions, fielding sessions under lights at the Adelaide Uni Hockey Stadium, running sessions at the Robert Crouch sandhills at Largs Bay, Pilates sessions with Melissa Laing, football games on Adelaide Oval which incorporated running. Every Wednesday, we were also subjected to a one-hour torture session with Robbie Carruthers and Stephen Schwerdt at the Adelaide Crows Football Club.

Throughout this tough regime, all the players showed tremendous commitment and endeavour to improve not only their physical fitness but also their mental skills. During the heavy fitness phase there were tremendous gains and personal bests achieved by all and sundry which was particularly pleasing for our eager coaching staff who had wonderful pleasure in seeing the boys under considerable duress at times especially in the pool and 'sweat room'.

It must be noted that the best result in this year's beep tests were recorded by none other than the assistant coach himself - much to our dismay! However, yours truly took out the 'Gold Medal' in the 200 metre swim and the one-minute Versa Climber test - not bad for a fat boy from Kilaben Bay! Not surprisingly, I didn't get the lowest skinfolds, maybe in my next life.

During August, the newly renovated Adelaide Oval Indoor Centre was utilised for batting and bowling sessions with less emphasis on heavy fitness work and more on specific skill work.

When September finally came the lads were champing at the bit to play some cricket (and get away from the torture) but our terrible weather at this time of year saw the Redback League start two weeks late on pitches not really conducive to great cricket. However, this did not dampen anyone's enthusiasm at all and actually produced some excellent individual performances. Shane Maraun from the Adelaide club took bags of wickets over the four games that were played and this enabled him to secure a contract with the Redbacks. Some young players outside the squad also produced results which showed there is plenty of talent waiting to pounce.

Brad Young had a late callup for Australia © AllSport & ACB

Prior to our first game (the Mercantile Mutual Cup match against the Bulls), we embarked on a team building camp with Canoe Images Motivational Camps near Mildura in country Victoria. On the way up the highway at Blanchetown, Brad Young, while munching on some local truck stop hot food, got the best phonecall of all: an opportunity to play for Australia in the ICC Tournament in Kenya joining Redbacks team mate, Jason Gillespie. So while we were having a pit stop, Youngy was on a tour bus back to Adelaide!

The camp was an ideal opportunity to welcome back our overseas contingent consisting of Jeff Vaughan, Ben Johnson and Shane Deitz - who all played league cricket in England. Our beloved captain, Darren Lehmann, was also making his way back from yet another outstanding year for Yorkshire in the English County competition and we caught up with him soon after.

Activities at the camp were varied but all had a similar theme: preparation and team work. The two nights we spent "in camp" were a great chance to bond with new players and tell a few stories over a very well earned, cold West End Draught.

Back in Adelaide, the focus quickly centred on our first game of the season in Brisbane against the Bulls in a Mercantile Mutual Cup match. Our last trial game was again washed out so with limited preparation but high enthusiasm and expectation we headed north to tackle last year's finalists.

Following two great days of practice and relaxation, we arrived at Allan Border Field quietly confident of upstaging the locals. After winning the toss and bowling first we gave a good account of ourselves to hold the Bulls to 7 for 273 off the allotted fifty overs. Standouts for the Redbacks were the debut performances of nineteen year old Paul Rofe and twenty-one year old Ryan Harris. Ryan, in particular, showed great poise to take 2-35 and a spectacular catch to match. With 274 needed to win, we ended an agonising three runs in arrears after our fifty overs. In what was an even team performance, we finished up short but with great performances from Blewett, Lehmann, Vaughan, Johnson, Davies and Harris, there is going to be better to come with more matches under our belt.

The big positive for the Redbacks was that when we looked out of it at different stages we came back hard - something which means the corner is being turned and perhaps the habit of winning is not too far away.

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