WEYMOUTH Cricket Club get their Dorset League Division One season underway tomorrow as they face Cerne Valley (1.30).

The seasiders’ faced a turbulent season last year with an inconsistent team sheet, and captain Simon Browne is hoping this year will be an Improvement.

“It’s been an okay pre-season. We’ve had net sessions going since early March, we had a friendly match against Portland last Friday night and we’ve got another practice match so we can give players some game-time so it’s starting to come together.

“Cricket seems to be a bit more difficult regarding pre-season than football is, and you find that the first time that the players are involved in the build-up is half an hour before the first match, whereas football is a bit more structured.

“But we’ve had a decent turnout at nets, we’ve got a couple of new faces, our younger lads are another year older, albeit the flip-side is that the older lads are another year older too!

“A positive for this year is that we’ve got a second team playing in Division Six, so there’s that sense of optimism that things will go well.”

Weymouth travel to Cerne Valley on Saturday, and Browne says his side could have had an easier first match.

He said: “Saturday will be a really tough opener. Out of the sides we played last year Cerne Valley were the only side to beat us quite comfortably.

“They’re a good, young and competitive side, so we could have had an easier start.

“I’m surprised with the way they played last year that they weren’t knocking on the door for promotion to the premier league, but they were just pipped to the post.

“I don’t think we could have asked for a tougher start.”

But the Weymouth captain is insistent that his side have enough quality players to make an impact this season.

He said: “The target is always to be that bit better than what you were last year. We had a poor end of the season which was disappointing, and I don’t want to be in that situation again.

“If we can aim to win the majority of our games and push up to the top of the season then that’ll be a good season for us.”