Dannevirke cricket club's journey to premier one

The Dannevirke Sports Club Manawatu team last year.

Five years ago, it was looking like Dannevirke's chances of playing premier one grade cricket were very slim.

It's been a struggle for many years, with the rural population dwindling and the numbers of teams following suit, but in the last few years, it's seen somewhat of a resurgence.

Ahead of the season starting this weekend for senior men, it's beginning to look very promising.

Club captain Gordon Kuggeleijn can remember when there were 13 teams in Southern Hawke's Bay.

"We couldn't sustain that," he said.

They just didn't have the players. "Cricket basically went down to one team."

Many of the players moved on to play for other areas and it went downhill, Kuggeleijn said.

"It's just the nature of the beast."

There were several different sports clubs back then and those who stayed were serving on the committees of all of those organisations.

Then the Dannevirke Sports Club was formed and it was decided to have one committee for all sports.

"We've got 550 members, which is pretty good."

Since the formation of the club, cricket has grown.

Five years ago there was only one cricket team and now there are four.

Two are in Premier grade three, one is a women's team, of which there is only one Premier grade, and the fourth will be playing Premier grade one this weekend.

"Third grade ... is really a bit more social," Kuggeleijn said.

"Some people, that's the highest grade of cricket they play."

He said there were 16 teams in that grade in the Manawatu.

The team about to play this Saturday had to jump through a few hoops to be promoted to grade one.

Two years ago, a Dannevirke team won the premier two grade.

Last season they were short three players.

"We still played premier two.

"We didn't win it - I think we came fourth or fifth, but when you look at the performance of the team, the individuals in it, it was one of the years in the competition where anyone could have won it."

Kuggeleijn said the team had actually beat those that went on to win the competition but he believed it was on the strength of their performance that it was decided they could compete at grade one."

Now he is looking at trying to get one of the grade three teams into the premier two.

"We just want to have the depth of players to keep feeding into the premier one team.

"Manawatu have given us dispensation for a year to get a team out of our two premier three teams that's going to be competitive in premier two.

"From what I've seen in the young lads coming up, that's not a problem."