Tigers shocked by Cosgrove defection

Tasmanian Tigers coach Dan Marsh says he was ‘left in the dark’ following Mark Cosgrove’s decision to leave Tasmania for South Australia.

Cosgrove’s management alerted the Tasmanian hierarchy yesterday, the 10-season veteran opting to move back to his state of birth for the 2014/15 Bupa Sheffield Shield season.

The left-hander is coming off a solid Shield campaign for the Tigers, averaging 33.94 at the top of the order; the opener part of Marsh’s plans moving forward.

“We'd obviously given him a two-year offer and he's decided to go back to SA,” he said.

“It is probably something we knew was going to eventually happen but we were hoping for another two year service.

“We’d had some discussions and they were all pretty positive in terms of him staying, so it did come as a shock to me and our list management group.

“I think Cos's looking to start a family. He’s recently married and the lure of going home was big enough.”

The move comes four years after Cosgrove was fired by SACA’s general manager of high performance Jamie Cox for what was then described as Cosgrove not fulfilling his potential.

“He was sacked by Jamie Cox and he's obviously forgiven him for whatever he did,” Marsh said.

“No doubt the same pressures will be there, so it'll be interesting to see how he goes.

Cosgrove’s departure means that Tasmania are now one experienced batsman down and the quest to fill the void left by the big left-hander is going to be far from easy to fill.

“We’ve got three blokes coming back from CA contracts so things are pretty tight,” Marsh said, referring to Ed Cowan, Ben Hilfenhaus and Xavier Doherty’s omission from Cricket Australia’s 18 centrally-contracted players list – and the need for them to be included in Tasmania’s contract pool.

“The decision we've got to make is do we go for another really experienced player or someone in their mid 20s who's looking for another crack at it from another state.

“My view is we want guys who can play for Australia going forward.

“So the guy who we recruit is going to have to tick that box as someone that we think can actually play for Australia in one of the two forms of the game.

“It's (Cosgrove’s departure) just thrown us out a little bit so we've got some work to do in the next couple of weeks.”