The 18-year-old right-hander took on board constructive criticism and today someone who was predominantly on the fringes of selection through the age-group representative teams here is now at the cusp of making his New Zealand under-19 debut in Australia.
"I was a little disappointed at the start but then I became even more determined to work harder to make it," says the Havelock North CC premier club allrounder before jetting off to Darwin with the national squad on Monday for a Tri-Series tournament involving the hosts and India over 19 days.
The 15-member squad played a warm-up game against Northern Territory yesterday before facing the Aussies on Sunday. The selectors will cull the squad for a team to go to the Under-19 World Cup in Dubai early next year.
The three national sides will face each other twice, before the top two will play in a final and the third placegetter will face Northern Territory on July 12.
The Kiwis will also play Papua New Guinea in a friendly on July 2.
On the back of a solid prem club, Hawk Cup season Tryon broke into the CD U19s team for the first time last summer.
"I started working on it [technical issues] with Scott Briasco," says the former Napier Boys' High School student who lives with his girlfriend, Tayla Sherwood, in Hastings.
The Zimbabwean-born player, who bowls right-arm offspins, becomes the first Havelock North club national representative since Martyn Sigley in the mid-1990s.
The teen, known to mates as "Marble", arrived in New Zealand as a 5-year-old from Harere with parents, Darel and Mark Tryon, and his two sisters, Gemma, 23, now living in London, and Denise, 21, who is in Perth, where her father works for a train company and mother is looking for work. The Tryons fled their country following the political turmoil in 2000. They lived in Masterton for four years before shifting up here.
CD manager of amateur cricket Briasco says Tryon is an "interesting character who doesn't say very much but possesses very good hand-eye skills".
"He's probably still very front-foot dominant," he says, adding Tryon is working on his timing to rock back to react earlier to shots.
Primarily he feels the teenager needs to employ his shoulders and back more, rather than just his hands in executing drives, something Bay high performance development manager Dale Smidt also honed in a player who "wasn't the easiest person to work with".
"He's very receptive to coaching now and a hard worker so I wish him all the best," Briasco says, adding he'd love to see him prove the selectors wrong in pursuing a national berth.
He suspects two things held Tryon back in the age groups.
One, he perhaps didn't know how to face the shorter-pitched deliveries and, two, whether he exposed himself to coaching to address his shortcomings.
"Potentially he's capable of becoming a good middle-order batsman in the short form of the game because he hits the ball well, can rotate strike, runs well between the wickets, can bowl offspin and all those things."
Although he bats at No3 or 4, Tryon is excited about the prospect of "something different at No 6 or 7".
"At 3-4 you get more time to get your eye in but at 6-7 you have to score pretty quickly," says Tryon, who prefers to get himself into a rhythm before taking an aggressive stance.
Having fallen in love with cricket after his father gave him throw downs here as a child, Tryon didn't follow his family to Perth because the chance of higher honours are better here than the cut-throat Australian environment. The Tryons will be in Darwin to support him in the next few days.
"I'd love to make a career out of it," he says, emphasising he loves all three forms of the code.
His other big influence in cricket is former Havelock North age-group coach Derek Ward, who also offers him part-time work at his business, Craft and Hern Sports in Hastings.
Passionate about the game, Tryon hopes to enjoy himself in Darwin and see the Kiwis do well although making Dubai will be a thrill. Having to slip on a black ensemble with his name emblazoned on the back of the shirt will also be unforgettable.
Briasco says the litmus test for Tryon will be how he reacts when the opposition start delivering rib ticklers.
