How are you shaping up selection wise for the final in terms of who’s available?
Has it been tricky to juggle your side this season? You’ve obviously been missing some key personnel at times, with Sam Topping and Matthew Foster out for the season and others being injured or unavailable.
Yes, we’ve been unlucky with availabilities this year with a couple of long term injuries in Sam and Fozzie, but we’ve got good depth and in the past few weeks we’ve had a fairly settled XI with only one or two changes. Ross Allen is on honeymoon for another week, and we need to see how James Mitchell pulls up but hopefully everyone else should be fit and available. Joshua Froggatt has had a good run in the team recently and done really well with the ball when called upon and has been very good in the field, and Matty Halliday has taken over wicket-keeping duties and done a great job.
We’ve got a couple of guys who have been in excellent form for a long time with both Morgan Topping and James McCollum scoring their third hundreds of the season last week, but pleasingly we haven’t relied on just a couple. Steve Stolk is having a good season and everyone is aware of how dangerous he can be when he gets going. Graham Hume has also scored a hundred and taken a six-for against Lisburn this season. Add to that Tom Mayes who can win a game with bat or ball, Adam Dennison who loves a big occasion and James Cameron-Dow whose availability is always a boost.
Your old club, Lisburn, have seen a lot of changes in their squad since last season. They look to be a particularly dangerous side in the T20 format with a lot of power hitters?
Lisburn are a dangerous team in any format or competition, and although their squad has changed significantly since last season they still have plenty of match winners, and their batting line up is probably best suited to T20 as you say, but we’ve plenty of power within our batting line up, and players who can adapt to whatever the circumstances dictate, so I’m confident it’ll be a great game, played on a fantastic surface and hopefully in front of a large crowd for one of the biggest days in the NCU calendar.
The Lagan Valley Steels T20 final has really grown in importance over the years. How nice would it be to win the trophy again on your home ground and particularly to secure a trophy in the club’s 175th anniversary?
As a club we have hosted the LVS T20 final for a number of years, and as such it’s always been a priority for the playing squad as there’s no better feeling than winning a trophy at home, but no worse feeling than watching someone else lift it instead of you.
The sides met in the final a couple of years ago, and they edged you out in a close game. It would be nice to gain some revenge?
That obviously happened a few years ago against Lisburn, and while I wouldn’t phrase wanting to beat them this year as revenge, it’s just something we’d rather avoid.
The fact that it’s our 175th year brings added significance and hopefully will inspire us onto win our first trophy of the season.