Last season, the Flames rallied in the second half of the summer to punch their ticket to the finals, falling to Rochester in a thrilling semi-final.
Fire Brigade has its eyes well and truly on the top prize in its second campaign back in contention.
Flames captain Rob Salter highlighted the club’s commitment to youth in 2025-26 and his confidence in the Flames being able to go all the way this summer.
“We just had a practice match on Saturday against Numurkah, and it was good to test out our recruits in Cooper Fawcett and Hunter Fawcett coming from Cooma and Ollie Hughes being our Welsh import,” he said.
“It's good to give them a bit of a run and see how they fit in the side.
“We're going to be pretty young this year, I think the average age on the weekend was about 20 or 21.
“We're relatively confident. We bat deeper this year, our bowling depth is a bit deeper and being a young side we should be pretty good in the field, so all signs look positive.”
Salter said the new one-day format for the season should make the competition even.
However, he also knows that his side has a tough opening draw, playing perennial contender Moama in round one at Northern Oval and Echuca in round two.
“I think the 50-over game will be interesting but, you know, coming from a shorter format, it tends to probably even the playing field a little bit,” he said.
“You don’t have to try and bat for 80 overs and find bowlers for 80 overs, which will mean the first two rounds will test us because we’ll come up against Moama, and then we’ll come up against Echuca, and they’re both looking pretty strong this year.
“By the time we’ve got the bye in round three, we’ll probably know where we’re at and what we need to work on.
“We’ll be looking for a few of the young guys to hopefully take that next step. Between Miller Griffiths, Bohden Learmonth, Shannon Fleming and a few of those kids, (it) would be good to see them take the next step, see how we go.”
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