Cricket: Search for coach a long innings

Bay of Plenty captain Peter Drysdale will take on extra responsibility until a replacement for former coach Ben Williams is found. Photo / George Novak

The near three-month search for a coach for the Bay of Plenty men's cricket team continues to drag on.

The side have been without a coach since early August, when Ben Williams left the role.

It had been hoped the position would have been filled ahead of last weekend's two-day match against Northland at Bay Oval, but there were no guarantees the side would have a coach before Christmas. "We'd love to get a coach on board," Bay of Plenty Cricket chief executive Paul Read said.

"It's been tough, we've been advertising since August ... but want to make sure we get the right person.

"We've been a bit lucky over the last few years with the quality of our coaching with James Pamment and Ben Williams, so we don't want to lower the standard."

Read said the role, which runs until the end of the season, was being advertised through a number of different channels.

The remuneration was not likely to be enough to attract a high quality coach from outside the area who was not also able to supplement his income.

"An option for us could be to look at combining a few smaller roles together with the coaching role and high performance and some age grade development and try to make it into a bigger role.

"We've been as active as we possibly can ... it's on our radar and if there is any sniff of interest we tend to follow it up fairly quickly and discuss it with those interested parties.

"We certainly want the team to feel like they've got some good coaching support, but in the meantime we do have support for them in terms of some back-up options and specialist coaches and our development coach assisting with the trainings on Wednesdays and some additional support around the team.

"If we could make an appointment before Christmas it would be ideal because I think that would settle things down going forward."

Bay captain Peter Drysdale said the lack of a coach had little influence on the weekend's loss on first innings to Northland.

"There's still feelers in place and the general feeling is that it probably needs to be someone who is already known around the area.

"There are no excuses from out point of view ... but a coach is going to be beneficial and is going to help us.

"I keep talking with Bay of Plenty Cricket.

"A lot of things have been fantastic this season in terms of the set-up and the preparations and that would just be the icing on the cake if we could get that."