DEVON’S route to tomorrow’s NCCA Cluberly Championship final against Buckinghamshire has been an unconventional one.
They began the season with a new coaching team, no professional, a team of mostly untried youngsters and with the sole aim of trying to avoid relegation from Western Division One of the Championship.
But they have ended it as Western Division champions and will head to West Bromwich Dartmouth for their second four-day final meeting with Buckinghamshire – the Eastern Division champions and national winners two years ago – in three seasons in good heart.
“When I got appointed my objectives for the county were very simple. They were to stay in the division and to improve somehow our white-ball cricket because it was pretty poor,” said Tim Western, Devon’s performance director.
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“I thought staying in the division by hook or by crook would be a win because I knew it would be tough. There wasn’t an obvious professional player available and we thought: ‘let’s go for it, let’s put the onus on the players, let’s tell them that we aren’t going to have a professional player, you guys go and do it. You will have our full support and we will put the right environment in place’.
“So that was the plan. When we sat down at Sidmouth on Tuesday after we had won the Western Division, Matt Thompson said that normally teams that get to this position have been building up to it for three or four years. But most of our guys have only played four or five games.”
Western has formed a new coaching team with former Warwickshire wicketkeeper Sandy Allen, Devon’s pathway manager, and former Somerset and Kent all-rounder Calum Haggett, who has made a smooth transition into coaching after four years as Devon’s professional.
“Having Calum, Sandy and myself at games has really worked and having Calum leading that has been awesome,” Western said.
“It wasn’t that long ago he was playing. He doesn’t miss the warm-ups and the long days in the field but he has been brilliant.
“He is on part of his coaching journey. He works with Exeter University, he works with the age groups and academy at Somerset and he also does bits and bobs with their second team. This is a really good learning curve for him and for us as well.
“We are still very early on in my tenure in my role. With Calum and Sandy as a coaching unit it all feels very fresh.”
Western takes the view Devon have probably over-achieved this season in three-day cricket and are under no pressure in the final. He believes there will be further opportunities for his young side to win silverware in the near future.
"We have a young side but everyone seems to bond together. There is a good togetherness, there are no big stars in there, no pros who people can look to and say: ‘leave it to them’. Everybody just mucks in and they get on really well.
“It’s new a journey for them and we feel that we are just at the start which is really pleasing for me.
“There have been times in games this year when we haven’t quite hit top gear in certain aspects but in others we have dominated games.
"The silverware is obviously important, but I don’t think we have even reached the startline yet with where we want to take the team..."
