"A thriving pool of players"

“A thriving pool of players” – Matt looks back on 2025 for the Pathway

The Somerset Player Pathway continues to produce outstanding young players.

This summer once again saw several home-grown players take to the field for Somerset Men and Somerset Women.

We caught up with Somerset’s Director of Talent and Development, Matt Drakeley to discuss another good year for the Player Pathway.

How would you sum up 2025 from a Pathway perspective?

“2025 was the first year that we’ve had the Girl’s Academy on board after they transitioned from Western Storm and it’s been great to see more high-potential players playing cricket. We’ve had some real successes across our Academy Programmes and we’ve seen Thomas Rew, James Theedom, Kian Roberts and Bea Willis sign professional contracts which I feel shows a good level of success.

“We had 16 players from the Pathway playing Second XI cricket and that’s reflective of how important homegrown players are to us. Those players come from across the region, including Devon and Cornwall and that’s something that we will be looking to ensure continues in terms of our reach within the South West.

“The Pathway continues to grow, and we’ve got more players playing more matches than ever before and we’ll be introducing some additional age groups into the girl’s system next year.”

Matt was also quick to praise his team of coaches.

“The growth of any programme is only as strong the coaches who are involved,” he said. “We have a highly passionate team who are delivering outstanding experiences to our players and helping them grow and develop. They’re also creating a real connection between the players and the Club. That’s important because wherever the players end up in their cricketing careers, they’ve always got Somerset to come back to.”

2025 saw the Club continuing to strengthen our ties with state schools, as Matt explained. “We’ve got a number of players who have come through as part of the State School Programme and the wider MCC Foundation initiative, the delivery of which is led by Thom Bunker and Tilly Bond. In Somerset we have a number of excellent private schools that bring a number of players onto the Pathway and it’s crucial that we compliment that by ensuring that state school players get the same level of opportunity.

“The programme is going really well and we have sites at Weston-super-Mare, South Bristol, Glastonbury and Taunton to ensure that it’s as easy as possible for people to access those programmes.

“2025 also saw the introduction of the Brian & Julie Foxwell Trust which is designed to support the Club in identifying, developing and inspiring high potential young cricketers across the County. The generosity of the Foxwell’s has helped us to grow the State School Programme and has also enabled those players within the Pathway who need additional support to access the game during the summer or the winter. That has ultimately led us to having a more inclusive Pathway. We’ve seen James Theedom transition from the state school environment and hopefully this will enable more players from a state school background to move into the Pathway.

“The goal is to have a thriving pool of players regardless of their educational background.”

Over the years, the Somerset Pathway has become the envy of the domestic game. How does the Club ensure that success is mirrored within the women’s game?

“That’s something that we are definitely aspiring to do. We need to do it in our own unique way. There are nuances within the women’s game nationally which will lead to players having different routes into the game, but what we’re trying to do is ultimately take the learnings from what we’ve done really well in the Boy’s Pathway and create those same processes and opportunities within the girl’s system.

“We are actively delivering in Cornwall and Devon with Emerging Player Programmes, which give us the chance to give opportunities to the best players across the region before we bring them onto the Somerset Academy.

“One of the challenges of Tier 1 cricket is that Western Storm was effectively split across Somerset, Gloucestershire and Glamorgan which meant that our player pool was initially diminished, so we’re having to rebuild something. Jack Bradbury and newly appointed Karla Rose are working incredibly hard to create a strong system which will allow us to bring players through.

“I have no doubt that we can achieve this, and I believe that we will continue to see players coming through. We know the benefit that someone like Tom Abell playing for Somerset has on the local community in terms of the connect that it creates, and we’ve seen that with Sophie Luff and Niamh Holland in the women’s game. We want to create those role models who really inspire across Somerset and the wider region.”

How does the Pathway operate throughout the winter?

“We’ve built a framework that’s delivered across Somerset, Devon and Cornwall. This deals with the core elements that we feel the players should be doing at various age groups. What the team of coaches, led by Andrew Griffiths, are doing at the moment is building a curriculum and a syllabus that we will utilise in order to allow those players to develop with every contact point that they have throughout the winter.

“The majority of age groups will be with us for 36 hours this winter, whilst the Academy and EPP Programmes will have up to 8-10 contact hours per week. What we’re trying to do is have some really deliberate development opportunities for those players which will replicate what they’re going to experience in the summer. The more of those experiences we can provide them with, the more familiar they will become with those experiences which will hopefully enable them to put performances in which allow them to evidence their ability as they get to the top of the Pathway.

“That could be the boys challenging in Second XI cricket or the girls showing what they can do in Academy cricket. We want them to be banging on the door of First Team cricket and professional cricket as we saw the likes of Thomas Rew doing this summer. He is a player who has demonstrated that, through consistent performances at Second Team level, you can achieve what he did in the 2025 Metro Bank One Day Cup.

“I feel like we have a great blueprint for our players to work towards and that these winter months are really important when it comes to player development despite the lack of outdoor opportunities. We’re also really excited about the renovation work that’s being carried out in the Centre of Excellence. That’s going to bring a type of freshness to what we deliver for our young players during the next few months.”

What does 2026 have in store?

“The reality is that transitioning players into the professional environment is really important and it’s something that we have to be focused upon at the top level, but we want to be identifying the right people to allow them to develop. The Pathway has to be inspirational because not everyone can go on to play for Somerset. We would love that to be the case but the final touch point for a lot of players will be with county age group cricket. Therefore, we need to create this sense of excitement and enjoyment in the wider piece of Somerset cricket that they are involved with.

“As a coaching group, I want to ensure that the coaches feel like they’re on that journey too. I want them to be inspired by the players who they’re working with and that they develop within their roles. As important as it is to identify the right players from across the region, it’s equally important that we continue to identify the right coaches, upskill them and take them on a similar journey.

“We are incredibly proud of what we do as a Pathway and Academy in Somerset, but we have to ensure that we’re celebrating the successes of Devon and Cornwall as well. It’s important that we help them to contribute to the success of the Somerset First Team within the men’s and women’s games.”

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