The Breen Machine
Striker
Losing Stoneman, Borthwick and Jennings was massive, half of the batting line up, all home grown, all around England honours all gone. When he found his feet, Bancroft was a good signing, Lees looks to be recapturing old form but we seem to have tried to bring players in who haven't been up to it. The big problem is that since Jennings, who's now 28, who have we brought through in the batting line up who's really nailed down a place? I know we've always done better with quicks than batsmen which is understandable given the wicket but the lack of batsmen development is a concern. I still fancy our bowlers to do alright but they're rarely given anything to work with.
It was a huge loss to the club, Borthwick and Stoneman in particular were consistently scoring around 1000 runs each season. We've always managed to bring through more bowlers than we have batsmen, perhaps it's the conditions in the NE and the Riverside pitch, but there even seems to be less bowlers coming through now.
Overall, signings have quite poor with the exception of Lees and Eckersley. We seem to have gone back to the mid-90's in signing average players that other counties don't want, or players coming towards the end of their careers. It's probably unavoidable given the lack of funds but I'm not a fan of us going down the Kolpak route, particularly given none of them are really improving the side.