NICK Foster ticked pretty much every box last season except one.
He steered Stockton to a premiership, winning the Newcastle player-of-the-year award in the process.
He also led the Newcastle representative team to their third straight NSW Country title.
But as for NSW Country's performance at the Australian Country Championships, captain Foster admitted with brutal honesty: "We had a shocker. We were terrible last year."
Not surprisingly, the veteran all-rounder says the Bush Blues owe it to themselves to show their true colours at this season's Australian Country carnival, which starts in Canberra on Friday.
Foster said NSW "just didn't win the big moments" last season and suffered the consequences.
"Those momentum swings you see in matches, we probably ended up on the wrong side of every single one of them," Foster said.
"It was just us not being good enough, really.
"For whatever reason, we didn't take our chances and, if you don't do that, when you're playing against good teams you inevitably end up on the wrong side of the result."
The past two national titles have been truncated because of COVID and Foster was looking forward to a full-strength competition.
"It will be good to be back playing a proper national tournament, and certainly by NSW standards, we need to be doing a little bit better than we did last year," he said.
He was confident that would happen as the Bush Blues chase their first title since 2017-18.
"We've got maybe six or seven debutants this year in a squad of 14, so plenty of fresh faces," Foster said.
"I think we've got a really well-balanced team this year, and everyone who has been selected has forced the selectors' hands through performance, as opposed to maybe getting picked through incumbency or whatever else. The guys who have been chosen are all playing good cricket."
The team includes seven Novocastrians: Foster and Stockton teammates Logan Weston and Jeff Goninan, as well as Aaron Bills (Wests), Pat Magann (Wallsend), Josh McTaggart (Waratah-Mayfield) and Josh Bennett (University).
Five Newcastle players - Kirsten Smith, Abbey Taylor, Ally McGrath, Emma-Jayne Howe and Jaclyn Vickery - have been named in the NSW Country women's squad.
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