Mark wallace was definitely in the auction and was boasting about the cutting edge data they had used to select this squad. Last year was awful but its going to be 8 defeats this year.Originally Posted by the other bob wilson
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Mark wallace was definitely in the auction and was boasting about the cutting edge data they had used to select this squad. Last year was awful but its going to be 8 defeats this year.
Well mark wallaxce is welsh fire team manager and he explains his picks here
The Hundred: 'The money's a difficult one to work out' - Welsh Fire boss Wallace - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/cricket/60996666
The squad was mediocre last season and a lot of them are back this time, so I assume there was not as much money available for the auction as in 2021. Clarke, whose signing I can understand to some extent, now has two ducks in three innings and although he’s a talent is still like too many in the team - good county players with little or no experience of international level cricket. Zampa is a good one day international bowler and Miller has a lot of white ball caps for South Africa (although you’d never have guessed it last night), but it looks like a bottom of the table squad. and it’s playing like one - also, there’s no cricketing advantage at all to them playing at home because they handle the poor Cardiff pitches worse than their opponents do.
It’s a far weaker squad than last year and that was poor enough. I had to Google have the team. If Fire couldn’t close out that match there is no chance in hell in winning any of them.
Why has Carlson taken off a spinner and brought Harris back on when our seam attack is being hammered all over the place?
just read the scorecard v Essex.
reveals that there are some big cracks in the setup.
goodnight Vienna
Can you understand clarkes signing for cricketing reasons or because he went to bilingual secondary school- ysgol uwchradd Llanfyllin and promotes the welsh brand?
For cricketing reasons, but now you mention it, that’s about as close a connection to Wales as the team’s going to get. I was told by someone who was at the first game that Josh Cobb was announced as being Welsh - having just looked at Cobb’s Wikipedia page, I can only assume he was taking the piss or, probably more likely, misheard what was said.Can you understand clarkes signing for cricketing reasons or because he went to bilingual secondary school- ysgol uwchradd Llanfyllin and promotes the welsh brand?
Its a pisstake. Hes calling himself and being announced as josh the welsh Cobb for some reason!
Maybe the crowds are bigger because of all those Somerset and Gloucester fans popping over to support their franchise?
#facepalmsmiley
I have zero interest in the Hundred and franchise cricket in general, but unfortunately it looks like it's the future as that's where the cash is https://www.theguardian.com/sport/bl...rnative-season
Re the crowd point- i think we can all agree its much mote than glamorgan get. If we have to go back 70 years to question it for a game v the aussies then it shows how conclusive the recent argument is.
With regards to players. The issue is each team has home superstars allocated but all of ours play for Somerset or Gloucester as its their franchise as much as it is glamorgans. However its a big statement to think the crowds would be even bigger than they are with the odd welshman in.
Finally with regards to getting more welsh players in that would be amazing. However another glamorgan defeat today shows i am not sure who is putting their hands up for that. Despite glammy losing less players to the 100 than everyone else we still struggling.
Finally i always wonder how stable the welsh fire franchise will be. Its always been the most vulnerable with no team for the North east or the west country. The crowds have done their part but the team risks becoming a laughing stock if they do, as expected, now lose all 8 games so i wonder if the ecb will look at moving them- nfl style.
Well,you’re saying on the one hand that there are home players in the team because it’s got players from Somerset and GLoucestershire, but then you say the West Country doesn’t have a team. I do agree with you though that the competition doesn’t need a team as poor as Welsh Fire have been so far (I see the woman’s team lost fairly comfortably yesterday as well) . I’ve just checked and the Welsh Fire’s average crowd last year was the lowest of the eight teams by a distance which suggests that even with this season’s improved attendances, they’re still the team with the poorest support, so I think the franchise could move to another part of the country and the North East looks the most likely area.
Where do Glamorgan crowds rank against other counties?
Welsh Fire's crowds last year were hit by Covid at least a few times. Limited to maybe 3,000 from memory due to Welsh Covid rules being different to England.
I'm not sure it will be moved. With the draft style team picks there could be a completely different team there next year. This system is meant to guard against there being one outlying good/bad team and all games be at least competitive to some degree but for some reason this season on paper and result wise Welsh Fire seems to be well short of the others.
My worry from a Glamorgan perspective would be a clearly bad Welsh Fire team getting much better crowds than the established county team that plays at the same ground.
I’ve not seen how many members Glamorgan have these days, but, traditionally, they are towards the bottom of any table of members/spectators with only counties like Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Northamptonshire tending to be below them.
That’s one of the things that frustrate me about Welsh Fire. Although it might not sound like it on here and I was one of those who was very anti Hundred before the tournament started, I found I quite enjoyed it once I watched a few games and the truth is, you put the word “Welsh” in the name of a sporting team and I’ll always want them to win. So, it’s annoying that a system that is designed to provide as level a playing field as possible still ends up with a situation where the Welsh team is, in my eyes, clearly the weakest of the eight on paper.
I watched that interview with Mark Wallace that was posted on here about the Welsh Fire signings for this season and it was put to him that Joe Clarke was a “left field” choice as what I’ll call their number one draft pick. Wallace’s answer was along the same lines that made think that he may be a bit of an inspired choice, but it’s not worked so far and it looks worse because the whole team is having a batting crisis of confidence. Of course seeing so little of Johnny Bairstow in the last two seasons has not helped the Welsh Fire cause, but this feels like those years we get sometimes when Glamorgan are clearly the weakest team out of the eighteen.
A typical example of a team totally transforming its performance in the space of one draft style pre season transfer is London Spirit.
They finished bottom last season with 3 points from 8 games.
They are top this season after 4 games with 8 points.
Also interesting to note is Manchester Originals have, up to this point, performed identically results wise to Welsh Fire.
3 points last season and 0 this.
Sorry, it was 6 points last season for Fire and Manchester Originals.
Bob have you really forgotten covid restrictions last year in wales which were much harsher than the English ones?
Ridiculously unfair to compare crowds in England with no restrictions to the welsh ones which apart from the last game had a capacity of about 3k!
Re home players im saying you are asking for more welsh glamorgan players. The bottom line is they arent good enough or they'd be there. Its not like they havent been picked deliberately they just aren't good enough. So the team only selected 'home' players from Somerset and Gloucester. If they did select players for commercial reasons as you seem to be suggesting then i am sure some on here would use that as evidence (and rightly so) to further ridicule the tournament.
Yes, 2020 and 2021 is something of a blur to me because what was going on with Covid, so I did forget about crowd restrictions in Wales, but the Hundred ran from 21 July to 21 August I think it was last year and crowds were allowed back at City in early August for the start of the Championship season, I assume it was the same with cricket.
The 2022 Wisden carries the following details of Welsh Fire crowds in 2021, the total attendance for their four matches was 22,280 with their smallest gate being 3,021 and their largest 9,261 which rather sounds like they had two games of restricted crowds and two of unrestricted ones. By way of comparison, the men’s Champions, Southern Braves were the only other team to have at least one attendance of below five figures with their smallest crowd being 9,204. Sixth in the average crowd table were the Northern Superchargers with 11,475 compared to the Southern Braves’ 10,786, so there’s a chance the Welsh Fire may be able to better those figures if the sort of crowds seen in their first two home matches are maintained - I still don’t think they’ll be maintained in the medium to long term without an improvement in results for one or both of the teams.
All four Welsh Fire home games last year were subject to some level of restriction. All four were sell-outs.
Every Welsh Fire game has either been a sell-out, or 10k+. A quick look at Glamorgan's pre-covid financial statements show £0.6m revenue from membership fees & ticket sales per annum... the Welsh Fire will exceed this in just four games.
I'm a Glamorgan supporter, but since I live down the road from Sophia Gardens, I've been to every Welsh Fire game as well. Regardless of the fact that the Welsh Fire have the worst cricketing managing team of any franchise (and the performance reflects as such) the crowds are enjoying the games - smiles all round when leaving the ground, and mainly children. It'll be interesting to see to what extent performances actually impacts crowd-levels. We'll see next week given there's a game on both the Monday and the Friday evening.
We have to accept that there aren't many avid cricketing fans in Wales. Most people will settle for seeing just a handful of games every season. The problem for Glamorgan is that those people can now get their fix from the Welsh Fire.
Pains me to say it, but I think Welsh Fire is here to stay and there should be more concern around Glamorgan's future. A handful of people watching Glamorgan games on the streams and then discussing it on a football message board does not pay the bills.
Certain points need to be made here. The Hundred has received far more promotion than T20 blast has ever received. The Hundred benefits from BBC coverage. The Hundred benefits from each franchise having far more money to buy players than counties like Glamorgan will ever have. So we are not talking of a level playing field here.
There was never any need for the Hundred. The ECB could have provided the promotion and funding to the counties for T20 instead. I’m sure the BBC could also have become involved especially as SKY only provide live coverage of a small percentage of the games.
Welsh Fire’s women going all around the park in their bottom of the table clash with Manchester.
I get a feeling you're not a fan.
No, I said in an earlier post that you stick the word Welsh in front of a team and, despite my misgivings in this case, I’ll always want them to win. They’ve made a good start here chasing a big target, they’re a bit behind the rate, but not out of it by any means.
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