IN-FORM: Exies’ Chris Mansell will be on the hunt for more wickets against Leagues Club tomorrow.
EXIES captain Marc Tucker said his side's top-order can't place extra pressure on their teammates and said batting in partnerships will be top of his to-do list tomorrow when they tackle Leagues Club Panthers at West End Oval.
With their top six scoring just 24 runs last weekend against Coro, Exies were never able to recover as they fell to the Cougars in their first game of the season.
"They (Coro) bowled pretty well, but we played some bad shots as well which didn't help us, plus the wind and the rain didn't help us," Tucker said.
"It was the first game, but we've been practicing for a fair while now in the pre-season, so we should have been able to chase it down because it wasn't that big of a total."
Exies were unable to see much of its new opening keeper-batsman Rick Merz, who made just two on his club debut, but Tucker said reinforcements were on the way.
"What we need to do this week hang around and build a few partnerships in the top order, but we do have Theo Valeri back for us this week which is a boost," he said.
"He's still in uni in Canberra, but he's back for a few months now, so he'll probably bat in the middle-order this weekend."
The Panthers will be looking for their first win as a club, with a young first grade side falling to the Yenda Jets by 61 runs in the first time out for the joint-venture.
"I haven't really heard much about them at this stage, I just saw in the paper they had a very young side last week, but it'll be a good challenge to see how they're going ourselves," Tucker said.
The Exies skipper also talked up fast bowler Chris Mansell's early season form, saying he could recapture the strike power of 2010, which saw him the stand out quick of the Griffith competition.
"He bowled pretty well on the weekend, he got the couple of wickets, and he just seems a bit more worried about bowling line and-length rather than just fast," Tucker said.
"But once he gets his rhythm right, he's bowling just as fast as he did anyway."
