By Yarin Barrett
The warm weather is upon us, which means the local cricket season is here, but for some Sunshine Coast clubs things are a little different now.
Hinterland cricket clubs are facing new challenges to maintain their presence in the Sunshine Coast Cricket Association (SCCA) competition.
As the competition heads in a new, more streamlined version, smaller clubs are being forced to make important decisions to survive.
Clubs across the hinterland region are being forced to evaluate their position in the competition.
Recent years have seen clubs merging or developing a sister club relationship in order to survive, with some not making the cut and forced to close down.
Clubs including Burpengary, Caboolture, Landsborough, Maleny, Nambour, North Lakes, Palmwoods, Wamuran and Sandstone Point have all been affected in some way in in the last few seasons alone.
For some it is due to a lack of players registered, while for others it is a lack of facilities and funding, and ultimately not being able to meet the requirements of a club competing in the Sunshine Coast competition.
The SCCA is looking to consolidate clubs into five or six larger entities, with more teams per division, rather than managing several smaller clubs, with the aim to create a stronger competition for players to perform and progress to higher honours.
In 2022, the SCCA moved to ‘The Big House’ at the Landsborough Sports Complex with a view of separating the association from other clubs by being based at the stand-alone facility.
The SCCA region spans from Caboolture in the south to Gympie in the north, with affiliated clubs including Caloundra, Glasshouse, Landsborough, Palmwoods and Nambour-USC.
The competition has over 2000 players competing each week, with clubs playing in men’s, women’s and junior competitions.
The men’s first grade competition was previously 10 teams, but is now down to eight, with Maroochydore Cricket Club’s second team and the team from Palmwoods Cricket Club dropping down into division two for this season, along with the merger of Nambour and USC.
Currently, the eight-club competition means every team will play each other in all formats across the season, the SCCA is encouraging alliances, with a goal of reducing the number of smaller clubs to improve talent depth and player development, which could see first grade reduced further to only six teams in the future.