CHARLESTOWN'S Dan Bailey remains on standby for Sunday's NSW Country Championships final as Newcastle officials assess the fitness of an injured opening bowler.
Former Bush Blues representative Bailey is poised to return to the Newcastle team with Wallsend's Pat Magann racing the clock to recover from a side strain.
Right-armer Bailey, who played for Newcastle in the 2020-21 decider, will get called up to face neighbours Central Coast at No.1 Sportsground if Magann eventually gets ruled out.
Newcastle coach Shane Burley says Magann will be given until the end of the week to determine whether or not he's right to take the field.
Magann sat out the most recent club game after pulling up sore from Newcastle's preliminary rounds of the NSW Country Championships in Tamworth just over a fortnight ago.
Left-armer Magann took 12 wickets, featuring back-to-back five-fas, across three days in what was his maiden campaign with Newcastle.
He was also coming off a hat-trick for Wallsend.
In the other notable change to Newcastle's squad, which was named on Monday, Stockton's Logan Weston earned a recall and comes in for Charlestown's Jed Dickson.
Dickson, a former NSW Country representative, was already Newcastle's assistant coach and helped fill the void in Tamworth.
The rest of Newcastle's 13-man group stays the same.
Meanwhile, City trio Kate McTaggart (43), Caoimhe Bray (2-5) and Maddi McGuigan (1-12) have helped NSW Country (3-146) defeat ACT (82) in Monday's opening T20 at the women's under-19 National Championships in Perth.
NEWCASTLE: Nick Foster (c), Daniel Arms, Joseph Gillard, Logan Weston, Jeff Goninan, Aaron Wivell, Ben Balcomb, Adrian Chad, Aaron Bills, Josh McTaggart, Daniel Chillingworth, Pat Magann/Dan Bailey, Josh Bennett.
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