Tara Murray
The opportunity to play closer to home has now turned into a first foray into coaching for new Rupertswood cricket coach Matt Twentyman.
Twentyman started his career at Rupertswood before having stints with North Melbourne at Victorian Premier Cricket and then more recently with Williamstown in the Victorian Sub-District Cricket Association.
Rupo announced that Twentyman would not only return to the club, but step up and doing the coaching as well.
Twentyman said it’s nice to be back at his junior club.
“It’d been in mind for a while to make the move and I thought the time was right,” he said. “I have a young family now and I still live in Sunbury.
“Travelling to Willy continuously for eight to nine years, it has taken its toll and you lose all that time.
“I wanted to play somewhere closer to home to have a bit more family time. In a way it’s coming back home.”
Twentyman originally made the decision to come back to Rupo to play. The opportunity to coach soon arose with Nathan Shoesmith stepping down from the role after one season due to family reasons.
“I thought it was a great opportunity,” he said. “I’ve never been interested in the coaching side of things up until now.
“It’s a good challenge and another opportunity.”
While Twentyman is new to coaching, he has plenty of support around him with the likes of Bert Van Den Heuvel and John Lane both having plenty of coaching experience.
Twentyman said he’d seen a few results here and there but hadn’t paid too much attention to what had been going on in the Gisborne and District Cricket Association while he’s been away.
Rupo finished seventh last season in the McIntyre Cup with three wins for the season.
Twentyman said they wanted to focus on the group they’ve got and continue to give opportunities to those rising through the ranks.
“I’ve chatted to a couple of the guys and the club has a lot of good guys and a lot of young talent,” he said.
“We want to rise up as a group and will have a fairly young side. It’s not going to happen instantly and we are looking to improve on the last couple of years for this upcoming season.
“They’ll definitely come in with more experience after the last couple of years.”
