General News
8 October, 2020
Todd Robertson named Cats skipper
MORTLAKE has turned to a number of its experienced heads to spearhead its upcoming South West Cricket campaign.
MORTLAKE has turned to a number of its experienced heads to spearhead its upcoming South West Cricket campaign.
The Cats have announced Todd Robertson as captain of its division one side, while club stalwarts Todd Lamont, Shane Slater and Nathan Jones have taken on coaching roles.
Robertson takes over the role from the departing Tyler Schafer, who guided the Cats to a semi-final last season.
The 32 year-old featured in all six of Mortlake’s premierships during its decorated run over the past decade and is eager to set the foundations for the Cats emerging brigade to experience success.
“I’m very excited and humbled to be given the opportunity at Mortlake,” Robertson said.
“I was Todd’s vice-captain for five or six seasons and the opportunity came and I felt I had the right experience to lead a young group of guys.
“It’s something I’ve thrived for I guess, but it’s more an opportunity that arose for me to lead us into our next phase.”
This season will be Robertson’s first stint as a captain, but he is confident he has served the appropriate apprenticeship under Lamont ahead of his first game.
He is also confident the club’s new coaching set-up will help his leadership, as will the club’s veterans.
“Todd’s record speaks for itself, I learnt from the best but the thing with Mortlake is there plenty of experienced heads to call upon to help along the way,” Robertson said.
“There’s no shortage of experience so they will make the transition into captaincy a lot easier. We also made some significant changes off the field.
We identified a few areas we needed to improve so we’ve gone and got Nathan Jones as our fitness and training coach, Shane Slater as skills coach doing one-on-one coaching at training and Todd Lamont has taken over head coach and will oversee everything.
“With these changes we hope to shape the club’s future – we have a lot of good kids that just need to be tinkered with a little and we should be competitive once again.”
Robertson will also be assisted by Isaac Wareham, who been named vice captain after committing to playing a full season with the Cats.
The all-rounder will play a crucial role in uniting Mortlake’s experience and youth according to the new skipper.
“Isaac is one of those guys who can bring together the older guys and the younger guys with both his experience and his enthusiasm,” Robertson said.
“His training standards are second-to-none and he sets a good example as far as the older guys are concerned in getting the younger ones onboard.”
Alongside Schafer’s departure, the Cats have lost leg-spinner Kyle McDonald, but Robertson is confident his club has found depth in its spin bowling ranks.
Derrinallum leg-spinner Tom Millard has joined the club, while Robertson expects one of the club’s junior spinners Mitchell Hughes to also feature at division one level.
Charlie Calvert is another youngster the Cats hope to expose to the top grade as they push for another finals campaign.
“Tom’s a Western Waves kid and played rep cricket with Lachlan Wareham and is studying at home so he is going to come onboard which is great,” Robertson said.
“We identified we needed to find a spinner and we also have a young kid in the under 16s, Mitchell Hughes, who might get an opportunity at some stage.
“There’s also another young kid, Charlie Calvert who is a top order bat and wicket keeper, so those two will probably get opportunities at some stage this year.”