Narooma cricketer Matt Corbett has ended his illustrious career on the pitch retiring after 28 years of playing, building up a trophy cabinet of awards and accolades.
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The fast bowler and top-order batsman finished his career on a high winning his final match with the Southern Eurobodalla Pirates on the weekend, being instrumental as usual in the victory Read more
Corbett started cricket as a young student while attending the then Narooma Primary School and playing with the Dalmeny Cricket Club’s Under 12s side.
Even in those early days, he experienced success winning a premiership with his team before moving onto the Under 14s team. He then went to B-Grade for a short time, until as a 16-year-old youngster, he was selected to Dalmeny’s first-grade team.
He then went onto play first-grade cricket for 24 years with the Eurobodalla Cricket Association and then the Far South Coast Cricket Association, when it took over, winning the premiership four times. In recent years, the Dalmeny club was renamed the Southern Eurobodalla Pirates.
But now he has realised he needs to take a step back off the pitch as being a quick bowler for all these years has taken its toll.
“It’s the aches and pains,” he said. "The body is not holding up like it used to.”
His accolades have been many and he captained the first-grade team up until only four years ago, and was also the club president for 10 years. He got Player of the Year twice for the Far South Coast Cricket Association and once in the Eurobodalla Cricket Association.
He was named leading wicket taker three times for the Far South Coast, with his best year being 51 wickets taken in a season. He won the bowling award in his club on seven occasions.
But he was also no slouch with the bat, being a top to middle order batsman throughout his career and being named his club’s batsman of the year on three occasions.
Cricket umpire of 14 years, Barry Wells had only nice things to say about Corbett, who was team captain for most of those games.
“I can honestly say I never saw him lose control of his team,” Well said. “As an umpire I can say he always played in the best spirit of the game. Not everyone always agrees with the umpire, but Matt would always take it and get on with the game.”
He was one of the rarities of the game and it was always a pleasure to umpire his team. I wish him well in his retirement, although old cricketers never die, they just get run out.”
Corbett has found cricket very rewarding and encourages other young people to take up the sport, even though many young people these days find it hard to commit to a game that can take all day.
“For eight years we had no juniors, but these been a bit of a resurgence of late with two Under 12s teams and junior coming up through C-grade,” he said. “Also there is talk of next year of having Under 14s team again too.”
And while he is stepping off the pitch, he is not giving up the game totally and plans to stay involved with the Southern Eurobodalla Pirates.
The final game of the season was also the final game for coach Frank Caruana, who is retiring after five years of being the first grade and juniors coach.
Corbett plans to helping out with coaching and training, when the new coach is appointed and the season begins again next year. And he hopes cricket continues to be a part of the community.
“I encourage others to get involved and it’s a great way to spend Saturday mornings with young players learning about team play and gelling with mates,” he said.