Cape York cricketing rivalries will resurface this long weekend when teams converge on the historic Musgrave Roadhouse for the annual Super 8s showdown. Photo: Cape York Weekly.
The wickets have been rolled – well, rolled out – and the road trip snacks sorted as cricketers from across Far North Queensland prepare to make tracks for the Musgrave Roadhouse this Labour Day long weekend.
If the weather gods play the game, 20 teams will pad up for the annual Super 8s encounter, with questionable displays of on-field prowess and plenty of banter the only guarantees for spectators.
Rivalries will resurface when players take to the field and Weipa Crocs veteran Aaron Johnson said his team was confident going into the competition.
“I think we’re fielding a better team than we did last year,” he said.
“We’ve got a few younger people, which is good – it means I won’t have to play as much.
“It should be a really good weekend.”
In one of several pre-competition upsets, rival Weipa captain Kurt Gane is rumoured to have lost his own brother to the Crocs ranks in a line-up shock, something Mr Johnson said he believed would only add to the barbs being thrown between overs.
“There’ll be a pretty good rivalry because of Skinny playing for us,” he laughed.
And what tactics will the Crocs be taking into the weekend in a bid to flex their cricketing muscle over the competition?
“Maybe we’ll just put the young fellas on the bowling, not the old fellas,” Mr Johnson suggested.
A source close to event organisers told Cape York Weekly officials were gearing up for another weekend of wild and woolly attempts by teams to twist the rules of cricket to their advantage.
“I’m telling you now, it’s a certainty there will be LB (leg before wicket) appeals that wouldn’t have hit the stumps in a million years,” the source prophesised.
“If teams read this, you’re not going to get a raised finger if it hits the pads of someone standing a foot outside leg stump, no matter how much your appeal looks like a young Dennis Lillee.”
