Eden returned to the cricketing fold on Saturday, but the competition is a very different landscape than last year.
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Organisers will run A and B grade play jointly as a first division competition with the two grades rolled together in a decision last week.
“The decision was made Thursday night, the only way we could get the competition going was to combine,” Tathra Sea Eagles president Rob Stevenson said.
There is now a 10-team first division draw with teams to play two one-day games against each other and finals to split into two grades.
“The top four at the end of the season will go into A grade semi finals and five to eight will go into the B grade semi-finals,” Stevenson said.
“Hopefully this is making a positive out of not such a positive situation, it’s been a disaster to lose teams from the A grade competition.”
Stevenson said it was a slippery slope to roll the A grade competition in with B grade and said it could be hard to rebuild the A grade
“We’ve basically lost the A grade comp at the moment, once things start to go backwards it can be very hard to get them back on track,” he said.
The Eden side dived into the first round of play with a match against the Merimbula Knights.
Unfortunately the visiting side was dismissed cheaply, while inversely the Knights have welcomed back some power hitters from previous years.
Eden took the crease first and Martin Butchers led the run tally with a great effort of 42 in the middle order.
Unfortunately, the openers had gone out cheaply with Drew Mudaliar out for four and Patrick Kearney toppled on seven runs.
When captain Tyrone Thomas fell victim to a duck on an lbw, things were looking shaky.
Butchers, steadily climbed the tally before he was caught out and Tom Foat joined in adding a valuable 20 runs to the board.
Cheap wickets hurt the Eden club as the order finished in the 27th over for just 96 runs.
Typically, the Knights had been poor at chasing down even modest totals, but the club welcomed the return of big-hitter Dylan Jordan this season.
Jeremy Fernando was returned to the sheds cheaply with just four runs in hand, but Andrew Daley and Jordan began building a solid partnership.
Daley was eventually caught out on 38, but Jordan stayed finishing shy of a half-century as Merimbula wrapped up the game at 3/100.
Eden will get a week off with senior reps taking part in the Burns Cup and return on October 29 against Tuross Head.