Looking through some of the names Poulton oversaw in those first couple of years - Heather Graham,Tayla Vlaeminck,Georgia Wareham,Tahlia McGrath,Maitlan Brown,Annabel Sutherland,Ash Gardner,Sophie Molineux - is to see the young core group who will now ensure Australia remain strong even after the likes of Alyssa Healy,Ellyse Perry,Rachael Haynes and Meg Lanning retire.
“There was this thought a while back now that ‘when the product is there we’ll start investing’ and of course that’s just madness,” Poulton,now the head of women’s cricket for Cricket New South Wales,toldThe Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. “It’s not a case of waiting for crowds to come in and all of a sudden using that revenue to grow your product,because you really need the investment upfront.
“It’s not a quick thing,there’s no silver bullet to it. Investing in your domestic structures really pays dividends in the long-run,but it’s not a six-month fix. It takes a lot of money and a lot of time,but the rewards are there.”
Those investments were being made even before CA enjoyed the windfall of the 2018 broadcast deal with Foxtel and Seven that effectively doubled the game’s administrative war chest. To a degree,too,starting small also helped the likes of Gardner and McGrath in getting exactly what they needed.
“It was only a small squad,so we were able to give that really bespoke attention to them,” Poulton said. “What are they going to need in two,three,four,five,or 10 years’ time,let’s see if we can start to address that now so they’re good to go in a high-pressure environment like a World Cup.