Rob Salter will once again lead a youthful Kyabram Fire Brigade unit this summer. Photo: Bruce Povey.
Coming into the 2025-26 McMahon Shield season, Tongala and Kyabram Fire Brigade are at almost opposite ends of the spectrum.
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Last season, Fire Brigade rallied in the second half of the season to punch its ticket to the finals, falling to Rochester in a thrilling semi-final.
Meanwhile, Tongala managed just three wins and finished eighth, just ahead of wooden-spooner Nondies-Cohuna.
As such, Tongala will look to complete a massive turnaround and play finals this season, while Fire Brigade has its eyes well and truly on the top prize in its second campaign back in contention.
Fire Brigade captain Rob Salter highlighted the club’s commitment to youth in 2025-26 and his confidence in the Flames being able to go all the way this summer.
“We just had a practice match on Saturday against Numurkah and it was good to test out our recruits in Cooper Fawcett and Hunter Fawcett coming from Cooma and Ollie Hughes being our Welsh import,” he said.
“It's good to give them a bit of a run and see how they fit in the side.
“We're going to be pretty young this year, I think the average age on the weekend was about 20 or 21.
“We're relatively confident. We bat deeper this year, our bowling depth is a bit deeper and being a young side we should be pretty good in the field, so all signs look positive.”
Salter said the new one-day format for the season should make the competition even.
However, he also knows that his side has a tough opening draw, playing perennial contender Moama in round one at Northern Oval and Echuca in round two.
Tongala’s 2024-25 captain Alex Williams has been ruled out for the summer with an ACL injury.
“I think the 50-over game will be interesting but, you know, coming from a shorter format, it tends to probably even the playing field a little bit,” he said.
“You don’t have to try and bat for 80 overs and find bowlers for 80 overs, which will mean the first two rounds will test us because we’ll come up against Moama and then we’ll come up against Echuca, and they’re both looking pretty strong this year.
“By the time we’ve got the bye in round three, we’ll probably know where we’re at and what we need to work on.
“We’ll be looking for a few of the young guys to hopefully take that next step. Between Miller Griffiths, Bohden Learmonth, Shannon Fleming and a few of those kids, (it) would be good to see them take the next step, see how we go.”
Tonny had a tough road last season with tragedy striking the club.
Captain Alex Williams then tore his ACL in the football season, ruling him out for the summer.
Even though Williams won’t be leading the A-grade outfit on the field, he will still be involved with the club throughout the season.
He believes it will be an interesting year for the competition and hopes Tonny can be competitive in the new format.
“I'm tipping the group this year to be pretty similar to last year, obviously minus myself. So we’ll probably be aiming to be as competitive as possible,” Williams said.
“It’ll be interesting to see how one-day affects the way that other teams and our guys go about it.
“But, hopefully, we can be thereabouts and I’m hoping that the new one-day structure will close things up a bit in the competition.
“We just had a bit of a hard run last year. Losing the two Smith boys (Luke and Benny) hurt our club quite a bit.
“We’ll be looking to bounce back and keep them in mind and keep a positive attitude throughout the summer.”
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