Deciding to focus his efforts on cricket rather than football, Ryan Forsyth is looking to turn St Michaels into a more consistent cricket club this season.
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Forsyth has been installed as the coach of the club and improving the Saints’ batting is one of his main priorities.
Taking over the St Michaels coaching role from Jordan Lawrence, Forsyth has highlighted the club’s performance with the bat as a key area for improvement.
After missing the finals last year, Forsyth is looking forward to the challenge.
“St Michaels is my junior club, I’ve played the majority of my cricket there and I’m really excited about coming back, continuing on Jordy’s (Lawrence) good work and also make a few changes that will make us a bit more competitive,” Forsyth said.
Playing with more consistency is one area the 32-year-old is looking to improve on.
Saints won three matches last season, including all two clashes with eventual premiers Kooringal Colts, and had the chance to scrape into the finals before a final round loss to Wagga RSL saw them finish 10 points shy of the Bulldogs.
Forsyth believes their record shows they can compete with the top teams and he’s searching for ways to see it happen more regularly.
“We’ve shown we are more than capable,” he said.
“Two weeks before finals we beat Colts outright and then the following week we lost outright so I think that goes to show we are capable but just haven’t been as consistent as we would like to do.”
Batting is an area that Forsyth is looking to focus on and believes it has the most room for improvement.
"We’ve definitely got the players to have a solid season but to start off with we need to start developing some positive habits, particularly with our batting,” he said.
“Hopefully we post totals that will be a little bit more competitive this year.”
Forsyth is also looking to foster more juniors into the team.
During his six years in Barooga, Australian rules was his main focus.
Coaching Rennie in the Picola South East competition meant there was little time for cricket but he’s excited to be back in the whites.
“In my last couple of years I played a few games when I was available but I spent a lot more time with my footy coaching and what comes with that,” Forsyth said.
“I made the choice not the play (football) last year which has freed up some time to take on the coaching role and hopefully work with all the players at the club to make it a really exciting place to be.”
Forsyth moved back to Wagga late in the second and played in two two-day matches for his junior club.
He scored 63 runs in his opening innings against Kooringal Colts before a duck and 46 against Wagga RSL.
He also claimed five wickets and is expecting to have a bigger impact this year.
Tom Byrnes is the only confirmed loss for Saints after he moved to Sydney while Ryan Price has returned from English cricket and Forsyth believes the club has more depth this season.
Wagga’s cricket gets under way on October 10 and Saints will tackle Wagga RSL at Wagga Cricket Ground.
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