TALENTED cricketers throughout the region are being invited to apply for a prestigious training programme this winter.

Rydal Penrhos School in Colwyn Bay will be the venue for the Marylebone Cricket Club Foundation Hub once again, which offers high-quality cricket coaching to talented children in the state school system, who have displayed the potential to become good cricketers.

The MCC will fund three coaches for 25 two-hour sessions at the school for under 13 and 15 players, which equates to a session every week in the off season.

The Hubs are put together, funded and mentored by the MCC Foundation. The day-to-day running of each Hub is left to a local manager, who runs local trials to identify talented children and who oversees the coaching sessions, which are open to male and female players from state schools across North Wales.

This is the third successive year that the MCC will be using Rydal Penrhos as their venue for the initiative, which has gone from strength-to-strength since its inception.

The scheme is available to players who qualify for U13 and U15 levels and it has already seen success in the form of Welsh youth internationals Owen Reilly and Josh Massey.

Director of Sport and Hub manager Allen Boyd “The Marylebone Cricket Club Foundation Hub is a brilliant opportunity to work with young aspiring cricketers from North Wales and I feel a block of structured sessions at Rydal Penrhos can only aid their cricket development.

“We will look to target all three disciplines of the game before testing our skills against other MCCF hubs around the country in the summer.

“The scheme has already seen some superb talent emerge through the system and we look forward to welcoming the next batch of recruits.”

Anyone wishing to apply for a place should contact Mr Boyd via email at ABoyd@rydalpenrhos.com.