COMMENT
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Trent Johnston is a shining example of the Illawarra's rich sporting nursery.
Johnston plied his cricketing trade in Ireland for the past 13 years and has returned home to take up the job he was destined for.
The former Dapto boy was announced as NSW's new head coach this week, replacing Trevor Bayliss in the top job at the Blues.
It's the latest example of a local kid done good.
Johnston hasn't just come from the clouds.
He signed on with Cricket NSW about 12 months ago as an assistant to Bayliss and as a pathways coach.
When the latter packed his bags and left to take charge of the England team, Johnston was there ready and willing to fill the shoes.
And while his appointment is great news for the South Coast, it should also set alarm bells ringing among the country's cricketing boffins.
Cricket in regional areas has been battling away for a lot of years and the powers that be don't seem to care.
For what is supposed to be Australia's national sport, cricket is in danger of dying a slow and painful death outside the country's metropolitan centres.
Chalk it up to whatever you like, but the fact is Cricket Australia (CA) appears to be doing little to arrest the decline.
Last week, Cricket NSW announced it would be taking a home Sheffield Shield game to New Zealand during the coming season.
The Blues will "host" Western Australia in Christchurch in early February.
The reason?
Cricket Australia "requested" the game be played across the ditch so a handful of our Test players could acclimatise to conditions ahead of the three-match Chappell-Hadlee series later that month.
NSW is obviously home to many of our current Test squad and CA hopes the Shield game can double as some kind of warm-up for those guys.
It also ensures the Blues should have a full complement of players available, rather than losing half their team to national commitments.
If you ask me, that's a pretty flimsy excuse for shipping one of our precious domestic fixtures overseas.
The residents of Christchurch won't be interested in seeing a Shield game played in their backyard.
Cricket NSW chief Andrew Jones says it will be "a wonderful chance to showcase the quality of the Sheffield Shield overseas".
The problem is, the majority of Australians have never had the chance to see the quality of the Sheffield Shield themselves.
It's been a lot of years since any television broadcasters bothered giving Australian domestic long-form cricket any decent air time.
And unless you live in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane, Hobart or Perth, there's little opportunity to attend a game.
Wollongong hosted a one-day domestic fixture at North Dalton Park a few years ago, and the Sydney Sixers made a token trip south for a showcase game against an Illawarra invitational XI.
Cricket NSW took a game to Wagga Wagga last season to play Victoria. The match was played about an hour north of the state border - roughly 500 kilometres closer than Sydney - and an estimated 7000 people filed through the gates over three days of action.
How many people will attend Shield games at the Sydney Cricket Ground this year?
The Blues will play three home games at the SCG in the 2015-16 season, and I think they will be lucky to get 7000 attendees over those three matches combined.
The fact is people in major metropolitan cities aren't overly interested in attending domestic cricket games.
And I'm talking about long-form and 50-over games, not Twenty20.
People in Wagga, Wollongong, Albury, Bathurst and countless other regional areas would relish the opportunity to watch the country's best cricketers play in their own backyard.
I must pay credit to Cricket NSW for taking one game to Coffs Harbour this season, but it must become a more regular occurrence.
Next time the bigwigs at Cricket Australia are considering taking a game to New Zealand, it would be prudent to look in our own backyard first.