Playing for the coveted silverware will be Country Club with two sides (same as last year), Central Hotel, Family Hotel and Stockinbingal.

This number of teams is down on last season with Coota Hotel and Wallendbeen not nominating sides. 

That said, Cootamundra District Cricket Association president John Stephens is still pleased with the rollup of cricketers. 

“Even though the amount of teams is down, the number of players in each team is still strong and the overall standard of cricket in Cootamundra still high,” Stephens said. 

An emergency meeting was held last Tuesday to recruit players and teams following a lack of early interest. Teams were spurred into action however and at the meeting there was a great roll-up of interested cricketers with players happily moving around teams to ensure an even standard across the competition. 

Last year’s successful South West Fuel Cup, contested by Cootamundra and Temora teams, has fallen by the wayside due mainly to a lack of player numbers in the Temora competition. 

The Country Club side was a welcome addition to cricket last season and won both the South West Fuel Cup and Sparre Cup, a feat that had not being achieved since the 1994/95 season. 

Central Hotel has named a strong squad of players and will be definite contenders come finals time. 

For possibly the first time ever, Family Hotel has nominated a side, which is mainly made up of the players from Coota Blues premiership side with a couple of useful inclusions including John Stephens and new cricketer to town Tom Cole, who played shires cricket in Sydney. 

Stockinbingal Cricket Club, who have been around forever and a day first playing cricket before the Coota association was even formed in 1899, will again be a force in the 2013/14 season.

First known origins of the boys from Stock playing cricket date back to 1893.

The Merrin Cup competition will break at the end of November for the Twenty/20 competition and the Christmas New Year recess. 

With five teams nominating, the format will be the same as season’s Sparre Cup.

In effort to get teams playing an equal amount of rounds, four-day night matches will have to be played in January and February.    

In the finals, the top two sides will play off for the Merrin Cup, the sides finishing third and fourth will play for the Sparre Cup while the team finishing fifth can start thinking about the football season. 

The Albert Park pitch, which has been extensively prepared, cut, rolled scarified, fertilised and watered since the end of last month is in top condition and will be ready for the season’s opener.

With the renovation of the Fisher Park pitch going ahead in the next few weeks, the ground should be ready for play just before either Christmas or when the competition resumes in January.    

Stockinbingal looks forward to hosting their usual number of matches, while Clarke Oval will be used as required.  

Meanwhile, the Cootamundra first XI will play their first Country Plate game, defending their title, against West Wyalong who Coota narrowly defeated to make it into the finals last year. 

PK and JL