JOHN Warrington has neither the steely gaze, nor the acting skills of Keanu Reeves, but like Reeves’s character Shane Falco in turn of the century American football movie The Replacements, Warrington will lead the best of the rest.
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Orange takes on Mudgee tomorrow, in Mudgee, in the Mitchell Cricket Council colts major semi-final, minus six of its regular stars.
Skipper Hamish Finlayson, Jono Warren, Sam Nicholls and Tom Rogers are all unavailable, while James Ryan and Charles Litchfield are in Coffs Harbour representing the Western Zone colts.
Coach Phil Dodds said despite having several of his best players out, he has faith in the 11 players who will take to Victoria Park tomorrow.
“We have absolute confidence in all of them,” Dodds said.
“The senior players need to take extra responsibility and stand up and perform, while the younger guys, or the newer guys need to treat this as a big opportunity.”
Dodds said attitude is crucial to victory.
“If we go in thinking we’re going to lose, we will,” Dodds said.
“We need to go out there expecting to perform, and expecting to win. Being confident is the only way to do it.”
The abundance of availability couldn’t have come at a worse time for Orange, despite getting two bites at the finals cherry as a result of finishing the regular season second.
“It’s not do-or-die, which is a positive,” Dodds said.
“But we want to, you always want to, go straight through to the grand final. Mudgee have a good side, with some great players.
“We’ve played them before, and we beat them, albeit in with a full strength team. They pretty much run their opens team, so we’ll need to perform very well to win.”
