St George Illawarra celebrated the end of their first week of pre-season training with a game of cricket at Hurstville Oval on Sunday [17 November, 2002]. The team was joined by members of the St George Cricket Club, who set up a fabulous weekend by beating Sutherland in all five grades.

A small crowd attended the annual event with a gold coin donation from each fan going to charity.

Almost the entire squad and coaching staff were there, including new signings Brett Firman, Hasan Saleh and Henry Perenara, who had a busy day in the covers. The one notable missing was new assistant coach David Barnhill.

The opening batters for the first game were Trent Barrett and Reece Simmonds, with new Dragons coach, Nathan Brown opening the bowling. Barrett racked up a commanding four runs before taking an early exit, which saw Mark Gasnier come into the crease.

Gaz survived a first ball run-out opportunity after advancing half-way down the wicket against a blistering Brent Kite ball. A few balls later wicket keeper Lance Thompson tried stopping a ball with his shin which gave him a nice little bruise.

The play of the day was Nathan Brown’s diving catch to send Peter Doust back to the stands. Up until then, Doust had looked pretty good, smashing his first ball to the fence.

Kids from the crowd were welcomed onto the field between games to have a hit, and received some handy tips from the cricket club members.

Laurie Daley padded up in the second match, along-side the likes of Mark Riddell and Chris Nero.

All in all it was a very good day, the players were very approachable and the weather was great. (Although the sausage sandwiches took ‘a thousand’ years to cook!)

I spoke with Jason Ryles who was due to have his cast off on Monday, and Shaun Timmins who will be off the crutches hopefully by next Wednesday 27th.

- Krammazda.