Heytesbury Princetown captain-coach Simon Harkness to depart

The South West Cricket champion and long-time Melbourne Country Week representative is eyeing a permanent move with his family to New South Wales in January, 2024 but is firmly focused on starting the season off strongly with the division one side.

"We've got a lot of committed people in one place which is good," he said. "Mergers can be a little tricky so we think there will be a few bumps in the road but that's expected and we'll handle it.

"We're working our way through (the move to New South Wales), it's all happened pretty quickly but as a club there's plenty of people who will step up when I'm gone.

"I just kind of thought with the merger I'll help kick it off because I've been doing it the last three or four years and then someone else can take it on and I'm sure they will do a good job."

Harkness, who has enjoyed an illustrious career at the club, says the division one side is shaping nicely despite some challenges from a recruitment perspective and a "rumour mill" around the state of cricket in the region.

"We've tried to get guys from overseas but we're still waiting on that, just to cover us more for when I'm gone," he said.

"The two clubs have come together and we'll work through that. It's been a bit tough with all the rumours going around the south-west, it hasn't necessarily looked like an appealing place at times with the rumour mill in the last 12 months, it's been crazy.

"But we've been really active and we'll combine our teams together and we'll have a strong (division one) list."

Division one will be a six-team competition this season with the departure of Noorat and Terang, who have merged into one club and gone to the Warrnambool and District Cricket Association.

Harkness said despite the chatter surrounding clubs departing, he believed the state of the association and cricket in the south-west was in good shape.

"It (the association) will be completely fine. A lot of competitions around Australia only have six teams in division one and make it work," he said.

"Bigger isn't always better, but in saying that it is certainly a shame losing Noorat and Terang. The competition just needs time to settle and it'll be completely fine."

The South West Cricket season is scheduled to kick off on Saturday, October 21 and be played as purely one-day matches again.

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