COLWYN BAY KEEP IT LOCAL WITH SIGNINGS OF HIGGINSON AND NEW

Date: 23rd December 2016

A Paul Edwards copyright exclusive for L&DCC Official Website.

Shrewd acquisitions together with the return of Pat Leach

Colwyn Bay’s hopes of improving on their tenth-place finish in the 2016 ECB Premier League should be boosted by the signings of both Kieron New from Prestatyn and Will Higginson from Northop Hall.

The Penrhyn Drive team and the club in general will also be assisted in a myriad of ways by the return of the former professional rugby player, Pat Leach, who has said that he will travel from his home in Cardiff as often as possible to represent the club he graced as a junior.

Because both New and Higginson are seam bowlers, Colwyn Bay skipper, Sion Morris is now looking to recruit an overseas batsman, breaking the club’s established habit of signing high-quality seamers. Morris accepts it will be all the better if any prospective recruit can also bowl a bit of leg spin.

For the moment, though, officials at the Welsh club are content with the recruitment of seamer New, who took 55 wickets for Prestatyn in 2016 and of all-rounder Higginson, who scored 383 runs and bagged 24 wickets for Northop Hall.

The hope is that they can prevent Colwyn Bay flirting with relegation as they did last summer, when the first team ended the season 52 points clear of relegation, having at one stage looked to be in severe peril of making a swift return to the First Division they had dominated the previous summer.

“All of these players will fit in perfectly at our place,” said a very contented Morris. “I’ve been wanting to sign Will in each of the last three years. He offers something in each department of the game and I’m very happy to clinch that signing.

“Then every time I’ve batted against Kieron, I’ve rated him. He can bowl long spells, he doesn’t send down many bad balls and he does a little bit with it. So I’m delighted that we’ve signed the pair of them.

“Last year we went with the same formula we’ve used in all but two seasons in the Competition of getting a gun seamer. But we weren’t strong enough last year and I knew we had to strengthen.

“Patrick is probably not going to play every game but he’s made a commitment to play quite a few. That’s really good news because he’s probably one of the best all-rounders ever to play for Colwyn Bay. He can whack it and he’s a genius in the field, although he stopped playing rugby because of a knee injury and we’re not sure how much bowling we’ll get out of him.

“But I’m perfectly happy to sign him simply on the strength of his batting and it will be good to have him back around the place. To get those three signings is a massive bonus for us and we’ll now look to make an overseas signing that will strengthen the batting.”