Eye of the Tigers looks for repeat

In Tasmania, the state's players are now being asked a new question. "When will you win it?", an annual request over the past four decades, has been replaced with "Can you go back-to-back?" Tasmania's 421-run Pura Cup victory over New South Wales in March had the island bobbing in appreciation, but that was last summer and the coach Tim Coyle says the squad has already moved on from the memorable party.

"We've celebrated well - after 30 years it had been a long time coming - but now another season is here and it's the start of an adventure," he says. "We want to get back the feeling of last year, playing positive cricket and expanding on our formula."

The first important date of the new campaign was June 1 - the start of official pre-season training. Coyle is not a meeting-focussed coach, but he got the players together and they immediately re-drew their plans, letting the satisfying and emotional Pura Cup win become a dot in the rear-view mirror.

"We decided we wanted to up the ante," Coyle says. "The win was great, but let's move on. Now we're looking at coming back and trying to do it again. The focus is not to sit back and say: 'We've won the Pura Cup, let's cruise along.'"

The Tigers had a busy pre-season that included intra-squad games in September, the annual camp at Barnbougle and last week's one-day competition in Queensland involving South Australia, Victoria and New Zealand A. They will open the domestic season on Wednesday with an FR Cup match against the Bulls at the Gabba followed by a Pura Cup fixture at the same ground starting on Friday.

In his third season as coach, Coyle, 47, enters new territory in 2007-08, with the Tigers transformed from the hunters to the hunted. Ten of their past 14 four-day games have resulted in outright victories and Coyle has been central to fostering the attacking outlook. In his first summer in charge, Tasmania were struck by a series of injuries to key performers, but the setbacks allowed the emergence of a new breed of young and exciting players who were well known to the coach.

George Bailey, Travis Birt, Tim Payne, Ben Hilfenhaus and Luke Butterworth have quickly developed into strong first-class players and they were crucial to the Pura Cup triumph. "I've been working with some of the guys in the squad since they were teenagers," Coyle says. "That's a benefit for me, knowing their games, then I have to fashion it on to on-field performance."

Last summer it worked brilliantly with bat and ball. "The attack was good and had discipline," he says. "We want to improve that in the group while Hilfenhaus may be playing with Australia and his 60 wickets will be hard to replace. There will be times when the other players need to take more responsibility.

"Towards the end of last season we got the batting right. We like to score quickly and give the bowlers a chance to bowl the opposition out as soon as we can. It's quite a development for Tasmania."

This season Coyle wants the Tigers to be more productive in the FR Cup - they were fifth in the previous two summers - and believes winning both trophies is achievable. However, the big questions centre on the outcome of the first-class competition.

"People ask us about defending the title or going back-to-back," he says. "We want to start well and continue to improve as the season goes on."

Captain Ricky Ponting
Coach Tim Coyle

Squad Dane Anderson, George Bailey, Travis Birt, Luke Butterworth, Sean Clingeleffer, David Dawson, Michael Dighton, Michael Di Venuto, Mark Divin, Xavier Doherty, Brendan Drew, Chris Duval, Brett Geeves, Adam Griffith, Ben Hilfenhaus, Jason Krejza, Tim MacDonald, Daniel Marsh, Tim Paine, Ricky Ponting, Damien Wright. Rookies Alex Doolan, James Faulkner, Wade Irvine, Jason Shelton, Jeremy Smith, Jonathan Wells.

2006-07 results Pura Cup 1st, FR Cup 5th, Twenty20 2nd.