Sustained success driving SA after breakthrough Shield: Harris

Ryan Harris has vowed South Australia's breakthrough Sheffield Shield win won't be a once in a 29-year event with the state's head coach setting his sights on more silverware in the coming seasons.

Harris, who won everything there is to win in his first year at the helm of the SA men's side, flagged to their faithful supporters immediately after Saturday's drought-breaking Shield triumph the desire to bring sustained success to the underachieving state.

And the 45-year-old former Australian quick doubled down on that promise at a fan event in Adelaide's Rundle Mall this week.

"I've spoken about it with them; the (players) know and hopefully this drives them," Harris said. "Winning's good, winning's nice.

"It's doesn't always work out that way but it's my job over the next few months to make sure that when they do come back in June, they're hungry again to make sure that … we fight, we play well, we play hard, and we want to have sustained success.

"So that's the messaging over the next few months."

Having steadily improved over the past four seasons as they built their depth with smart recruiting from interstate, Harris believes South Australia have the talent and the belief to challenge again next summer.

Competitions for spots in the XI is also fierce with 23 of their 26 contracted players used throughout the season in both their Shield and one-day teams.

"These things are really hard to win, 29 years will say that," Harris said.

"We've got the talent to do it (again), we've just got to make sure we're getting better – every time we train, we come to work to get better.

"I moved back here to win trophies, and I told the boys that when I took over.

"I knew there was talent in this group, I knew they weren't far away from success.

"It was a new voice, a new message, and they bought into it, all the players and all the staff."

Harris, who played 79 games for SA across the three formats from 2000 to 2008 before moving to Queensland, credited two factors for his side's success this summer as they lifted the Sheffield Shield for the first time since 1996 and won both men's domestic competitions (Shield and One-Day Cup) for the first time in the state's history.

"Belief was one of them, we talked a lot about winning, and we probably hadn't talked a lot about winning in the past," he said.

"The biggest one was purpose when we train – when we go to training, we've got to get better.

"If you come to training and you're not ready to train, then go home, go to the gym or do something else. I've heard them talk about (the impact of) that in the last couple of days, which is a nice thing.

"We've got a pretty good bowling group and every time the bowlers bowl to the batters, they have to get better and put value on their wickets at training.

"Just little things like that (have) made a big difference and a lot of it's just from what I've learned along the way with playing."

Harris said their renewed belief had given the group a fighting quality, which hadn't been seen in a South Australian men's side for years, thus helping them stay in games for longer.

"I started that last year with 'Dizzy's' (former coach Jason Gillespie) blessing – all I write up on the board is 'we fight'," he said.

"Our bowling unit is pretty special that whatever target the opposition get (set), we can defend it and if we don't, then we have a good crack at it.

"The same with the bat, it was a bit of belief in the batters, believe that you can do it and along with Steve Stubbings, the batting coach, and (assistant coach) Steven Crook, we just tried to get that message across.

"And we saw it again in the (Shield) final, we were 3-28 chasing 270, and they fought."

Shield and One-Day Cup-winning captain Nathan McSweeney said the squad had bought to Harris' message.

"'Ryno's' the most loyal bloke I've ever met, and I think the boys just don't want to let him down," McSweeney said.

"He's never giving attitude, he's taught us how to win, he's taught us how to train and I think most importantly you just don't want to let him down.

"I'm so glad that he's got the success early on and obviously he's going to be a massive part of South Australian cricket in the future, and I love working with him.

"Hopefully this is just the start of something that we can keep building on; winning two trophies is the goal and it'd be nice to do that every year.

"I really think that if we can keep this core group together, we can do this for a long period of time.

"We played 23 out of 26 players contracted, which just goes to show the depth in the squad. In previous years, we've probably relied on one or two players to really dominate and this year almost every batter in the top six made a hundred.

"Our bowling depth has been amazing for the last few years, but it was a true squad effort and that's why we're standing where we are winning both competitions. 

"To be able to win a Shield, it takes the whole squad, and this core group has been together for three or four years now, and as long as we can keep building that and keep us together, hopefully we can repeat it."

Sheffield Shield final 2024-25

March 26-30: South Australia defeated Queensland by four wickets