Manawatū Cricket Association

Manawatu Cricket announces a fantastic new coaching team to lead our pinnacle teams and junior rep teams

Manawatu Senior Men’s Coach: Luke Murray
Manawatu Senior Women’s Coach: Greg Codyre
MCA Specialist Coach: Jacob Oram
Manawatu U17 Boys Rep Team Coach: Hayden Robinson
Manawatu U15 Boys Rep Team Coach: Kerry Watkins

Manawatu Senior Men’s Coach: Luke Murray.
Luke has an outstanding record in Manawatu Cricket as a player, captain and coach. During Luke’s 14 years in the Manawatu Senior Men’s team, he played 114 games and his excellent batting was rewarded with selection for CD ‘A’ for over 5 years and Luke also played for the CD Stags. Luke captained the Manawatu Men’s team for 5 years. His coaching career started with the Freyberg Cricket Club’s Senior team and continued last year when he was part of the Senior Men’s Coaching team in 2019/2020 as Assistant Coach. The MCA appointed Luke knowing he will bring the same skill, courage and determination that he showed throughout his playing career to the role of Coach of this young, talented and extremely promising playing group. Murray is well respected in the wider Manawatu Cricket community and has huge mana within the Senior Men’s playing group which is sure to make the transition to Head Coach a smooth and successful one.

Manawatu Senior Women’s Coach: Greg Codyre
Greg has been involved in Cricket in the Manawatu for over 20 years. Having played representative Cricket at age-grade level for Hawkes Bay, Greg moved to the Manawatu to attend Teachers College. After graduating from Massey University Greg has coached many of our most talented players through his role as Teacher and Coach of teams at PNINS, Monrad and Ross Intermediate. Greg is a respected educator who is currently Deputy Principal at Kairanga School. Greg joined the MCA Coaching team in 2018 as the U17 Boys Coach and also played for the Manawatu Masters team earlier this year. Greg is excited about working with the Senior Women’s team in the upcoming season which features an extended programme (twice as many games in the Shrimpton Trophy as in previous seasons). The Senior Women’s team is a great mix of experienced leaders and promising young players.

MCA Specialist Coach: Jacob Oram
The MCA is fortunate to have one of the country's top coaches available to help in a specialised role this season. Oram will contribute to the programmes of both the Senior Men’s and Senior Women’s teams and also our Age Grade Rep teams in a specialised role. Oram recently returned from his role as Black Caps Specialist Fielding Coach for their tour of Australia and for the past 3 years Oram has been the White Ferns Bowling Coach. Oram combines his national coaching roles with his leadership role as Sport Advancement Manager at Massey University. In this role, Oram also leads the Massey High-Performance Cricket programme which features a number of CD Hinds, CD Stags and NZ Whiteferns as well as some of our most promising up and coming players.

Manawatu U17 Boys Rep Team Coach: Hayden Robinson
Manawatu reached the final of the CD U17 Tournament last year under Robinson’s leadership and he has been reappointed to continue the tremendous growth of players and culture this year. Robinson is a widely respected figure in the Coaching community and prides himself of creating a team culture that develops both the Cricketer and the man. After moving to Palmerston North in 2018 to take up the role of Senior Station Officer with the PN Fire Brigade, Robinson quickly established the Cornerstone Cricket programme and has been a great leader of our Age grade programmes including the Winter Cricket School, Holiday programmes and U17 Team over the last 18 months. Robinson is really respected by players and parents and will lead the U17 team to Hawkes Bay in December that aims to go one better this year.

Manawatu U15 Boys Rep Team Coach: Kerry Watkins
Kerry is a low maintenance, high achieving and popular leader of both our U15 Team and junior cricket community. Kerry Coached the U14 Rep Team last year and this year moves up to take the U15’s away to their CD Tournament in Levin in January, as well as a number of pre and post-tournament inter District games. Kerry has been instrumental in establishing the United Junior Cricket Club and is one of our excellent Junior Cricket Coordinators. Kerry is a lovely man and one of Manawatu Crickets genuine good guys. We are lucky to have him leading the U15 team, this is one of our most exciting and talented junior teams, and they are the result of a strong coaching programme and many great coaches involved in the development of our Junior cricketers over the last 5 years.

Director of Cricket Dilan Raj

Overall responsibility for all Cricket teams and MCA programmes rests with the Director of Cricket Dilan Raj. Raj is excited to have such a talented team of coaches leading the pinnacle teams this year. Raj will join with Oram to offer specialised support to Murray and Codyre. Raj is proud that all 5 of the coaches appointed by the MCA have been promoted from within the MCA Coaching team; he believes in growing both players and coaches in his role as Director of Cricket. Raj has held a variety of coaching roles with CD Cricket and NZ Cricket and is the current coach of the championship-winning CD U19 Girls team.

Article added: Thursday 06 August 2020