The cricket field has always been James Colhoun's happy place.
But since being recruited to Tasmania's intellectual disability cricket side a few months ago, the 17-year-old is finding even more enjoyment in the game he loves.
"It's a lot more welcoming, everyone's the same … like half the team knew each other from football and we just had fun," he said.
"[In] regular club cricket I struggle with running between the wickets because I'm not that quick … in the inclusion cricket I'm the same running speed as a lot of people and it's the same with throwing the ball in."
Colhoun's first National Cricket Inclusion Championships in Brisbane last week was a great one for the Tasmanian side.
Usually the competition easybeats, the intellectual disability side won four of its five matches to finish second on the ladder, making the grand final for the first time.
It's left Craig Blaschke, the side's co-captain, hungry for more.
"I feel like we're building something special with our young side, and I said to them if we stick together, in two or three years time I feel like we can be up there," he said.
"Especially next year, I feel like we can win next year."
First representing the Tasmanian intellectual disability side in AFL, Blatschke quickly signed up to play cricket as well, and began taking the sport he'd always played for fun a bit more seriously.
A fast bowler and aggressive middle order batter, he's already represented Australia against England, and is a chance to be picked to tour South Africa later this year.
"Getting to go overseas and playing cricket, it would be such an amazing achievement in my sporting career," he said.
"And not just by myself, alongside my mates … getting to go away with him would just be really good."
Blaschke is the team's unofficial recruiter in the south and is constantly urging talented young footballers and cricketers – eight members of the cricket side are still teenagers – to try out.
A sport for all
Belinda Kitto, the chief executive of sport and recreation club New Horizons Tasmania – which runs and manages the team – said it was a combination of the dramatic improvement of the team's young players and some aggressive recruiting that's behind Tasmania's surge up the ladder.
"When it all started it was sort of just gathering a few players that were available and the opportunity was fairly new," she said.
"It wasn't that well known so it was nearly whoever put their hand up got to go."
"And over the years we've built it up so it's true selection now.
"It's not easy to get in the team and unfortunately quite a few miss out. There's been quite a few new players this year that have certainly built up that level that we're at now."
Ms Kitto said making the grand final was a "massive" achievement.
"It's just so fantastic. Over the years there's been many a time where we've been well and truly beaten and sometimes it's been a little bit deflating for the guys, but they've always hung in there and keep building each and every year," she said.
Although winning is a key part of it, she said it's about a lot more than the on-field result.
"Sport in general is so important and really important for our participants with a disability. It certainly teaches a lot of team building [and] creates those friendships; it's so much more than going on on the field and hitting a ball around," she said.
"Just even having that week away with a group of other people that they've made those friendships with, they have to fend for themselves, they haven't got mum and dad there for that week so learning the general life skills and how to get along with each and everyone and support each other."
For Colhoun, life with the team meant more cleaning up after himself and learning how to stack the dishwasher.
Ms Kitto said the benefits were enormous for those lucky, and good enough, to take part.
"Having something that you can be really proud of and makes you want to get up in the morning and be excited and go to school or work and be able to talk about something you've achieved is great, and it's great cricket is a sport for all," she said.
At this year's national championships Tasmania also fielded a joint blind and vision-impaired team with the Australian Capital Territory – the first time the state had taken part – and Ms Kitto is hopeful the state can soon boast a deaf and hearing impaired side as well.
