MOUNT Gambier cricketer Connor Prior has been selected to play for the Under 16 South Australia Country side in the Junior Redbacks League.
The competition will be played in Adelaide from January 21-24 and will act as a trial to be selected for future state Under 17 honours.
This is not the first time Prior has been selected for this side, after he played as a first-year player in the Under 16 country side last season.
All the competing players and coaches were selected by South Australian Cricket Association’s coaching and talent development specialist Steven Broberg.
Broberg spoke highly about Prior and said it was his unselfish character which separated him from the pack to win selection.
“Primarily what we liked about him was his character,” Broberg said.
“When the chips are down or when the scoreboard pressure was being put on him he found creative solutions to lift not only his own game, but also the people around him.
“Many young children at that age can tend to fall in on themselves and be a little selfish, where as Connor demonstrated good care for his team mates and was willing to sacrifice his own game in order to progress the result of the game and for me that is a really important element of cricket.”
Broberg said he was impressed how Prior had expanded his batting technique to compliment his strong defensive base and become a more complete batsman.
“Conner has demonstrated a resilience in his game whereby 12 months ago he was certainly going through a patch where he tried to develop more run-scoring shots,” he said.
“Defensively he has got the makings of a very classy player so it was nice to see him expand his game to produce some more run-scoring shots.”
Broberg described the competitions selection process as a time consuming method.
“It was an exhaustive and rigorous process,” he said.
“My role as the coach and talent specialist is to identify coaches and players from the country who can participate at the highest level.
“There is a lot of travel involved and the process actually started in February last year when we drove around to all eight country zones and try to identity the kids who could potentially be up to the level.”
Broberg also mentioned how selecting an appropriate coach for the players was vital to allow them to continue their development of their games.
“There is a rigorous research and selection criteria for the coach because we want to make sure we have a coach with the best character as a person that will mature and develop our players to be
the best they can be not so much in cricket skills exclusively,” he said.
Broberg expressed the Under 16 Redbacks League as a high-pressure environment that will test the young players out to see of they have what it takes to compete for higher honours.
“With just 72 players from South Australia in the age group to compete against each over, it is obviously in a pretty competitive environment to justify themselves for selection trails for the state Under 17 team,” he said.
“There are three metropolitan sides and the state Under 15 team playing as-well, so we will have our state Under 15s playing against our 16 year olds, which will be a great baptism of fire for those younger players because of their competitiveness.
“Much like what Cricket Australia do with their Cricket Australia 11 in the national Under 19s and 17s, we will have our similar team in our Redbacks league which is a great opportunity for so many kids especially to the Under 16 kids to play against some good opposition.”
