‘Just nail them’: Mindset shift has SA on the verge of a dynasty

To the South Australians’ minds, they had already won, whatever way the result fell as the Sheffield Shield final reached its crescendo on Monday.

Coach Ryan Harris felt being in the final in the first place was a significant achievement for his group given the injury toll and player unavailability they had faced throughout the season.

Back in October, the reigning champions entered the new Shield campaign without their two pace aces, Brendan Doggett and Nathan McAndrew, who had lifted them to a drought-breaking title six months earlier with 16 Queensland wickets between them in last season’s final.

Doggett was out with the first of two hamstring injuries he suffered this summer, untimely as he pushed for a Test debut in the Ashes, while McAndrew had returned from the UK with a virus which caused nerve damage in his inner ear and plagued his rhythm for the first half of the season.

McAndrew was back in round two alongside Test gloveman Alex Carey and allrounder Liam Scott, who had been away with Australia A in India, but they were unable to prevent a second straight loss to begin their title defence.

More injuries hit in round three as paceman Wes Agar went down with a hamstring strain – he wouldn’t play again for SA during the season after hurting his back playing second XI cricket in January.

But Doggett and Ben Manenti’s return, the latter from an ankle injury, brought a change in fortunes as they fought back from an almost 100-run first-innings deficit to draw their third match of the season with Western Australia, with the former taking 6-48 to seal his spot in Australia’s Test squad.

It was the type of never-say-die performance that Harris has tried to instill in his players since taking over from Jason Gillespie in 2024, the same attitude that brought them back from the brink in the final on Sunday and defeat Victoria 24 hours later to lift the Shield in consecutive seasons for the first time in their history.

Despite further injuries to Doggett, back-up ‘keeper Harry Nielsen (finger) and promising quick Campbell Thompson (hamstring), as well as Spencer Johnson missing the entire summer with a back stress fracture, South Australia went through the rest of the Shield season undefeated, winning two of their last three home-and-away matches to qualify for the final.

That resilience, says Harris, is what’s made this latest triumph even sweeter than the one that broke a 29-year drought and sparked an incredible pitch invasion from their supporters when they won back the Shield in March last year.

“Coaching for me last season was easy; this season was bloody hard,” Harris said after his side beat Victoria by 56 runs on Monday.

“That’s what makes this more special than last year.

“Playing at home with all (our supporters) around was just amazing, but to come over here and do it in Victoria is bloody good for this group and this organisation.

“I had my CEO (Charlie Hodgson) and my general manager (of high performance, Simon Insley), come up to me and say we’d already won … with being here with the trouble we’d had during the season with players.

“I’m just so proud of the whole group. Whatever the scenario of the game is, we fight it out.

“The last time we lost a Shield game was in October. We’ve had a lot of draws since then; ultimately, we don’t play to draw, we play to win, but if we hadn’t fought some of those games out, we wouldn’t have been here.”

Harris inherited a South Australian side that hadn’t finished in the top half of the Sheffield Shield standings in seven seasons.

There were signs it was starting to turn with improved performances in the final two seasons of Gillespie’s tenure as they ended a run of five consecutive wooden spoons with a relatively similar list to the one that’s just secured back-to-back titles.

Harris believes the biggest change he’s brought to the group has been in their professionalism.

“There were a few that were really good at being professional; some were a bit looser,” he said.

“I was lucky to have a year with Jason (Gillespie), and I got to know the players really well and I was able to have that relationship with them.

“So when the time came, I sat them down and looked them in the eye and just said ‘What you’re doing is not going to get you where you want to go and it’s not going to help us. I need you to do X, Y and Z … but it’s up to you’.

“And they’ve all responded. The group realised that we are all on the same page, that we’re all trying to get the same result, and a lot of them changed.

“Henry Thornton’s one. When I arrived, he hadn’t played a red-ball game and the work he’s done, he’s a great example of professionalism and working his butt off to get results.

“When we train now, we compete, that’s probably the main one.

“We you bowl to (the batters) you’re trying to get them out, and then by that, they get better because they’re facing the bowlers. Training habits … and recovery, it’s been the basics, but it’s just nail them.”

While Harris savours his third piece of silverware in two seasons at the helm after SA also won the One-Day Cup in 2024-25, Victoria will rue one that slipped from their grasp.

The home side had SA 7-122 with a lead of just 59 runs early on Sunday morning when McAndrew and Carey combined for a 105-run partnership to set in motion a remarkable comeback.

Victoria were still ahead of the game with senior pros Peter Handscomb and Marcus Harris at the crease late of day four when they needed 94 for victory with seven wickets in hand. But their dismissals in the 15 minutes before stumps triggered a calamitous collapse as the Vics lost those final seven wickets for 37 runs.

Harris’ counterpart Chris Rogers said their latest Shield final loss hurt more than their previous two when they fell short against WA at the WACA Ground in 2021-22 and ’22-23.

“We went into those games massive underdogs and we spent our tickets trying to get to the final,” he said.

“This time, we planned well, we tailored it to get our players in the best form (for the final), but we just didn’t get the job done.

“The fourth innings of a game that has a lot of pressure, it does funny things to people. These players will grow from that.”

Sheffield Shield final 2025-26

March 26-30: South Australia won by 56 runs