Neale Thompson to play again for Southland cricket and Old Boys in 1956/57 season........

Sam Richardson, who played for Old Boys in the 1956/57 season.

 Southland was looking good for the 1956/57 cricket season, which resulted from a intense 1955/56 season with an international game against West Indies and many other representative matches.
It was with excitement that the players looked forward to another good competitive season.

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One of Southland's most consistent batsman, C. V. Shirley retired and G. W. Kitson and G. S. Noble transferred to Dunedin.
With the likes of I. G. Gilbertson, A. W. Gilbertson, N. Thompson, J. A. Gill, I. D. Payne, S. G. Morton, A. R. Wills, L. Lucas, J. O'Connell, J. Rolfe and R. Brown - all competent batsmen, puts Southland in good steed.
Then there were the allrounders in Jack Alabaster, G. T. Murray, D. G. McDermott, and E. C. Morton.
Bowlers, J. Hill, K. S. Semmens, L. R. Thompson, L. F. Ward, B. Fletcher and D. W. F. Overton. The Southland representative team would have a great number of good players to choose from.

From the previous season, Union was the inform team and again had Cliff Shirley, Gordon Shirley, Phil Giles, "Ponty" Semmens, Andy Storrie, Johnny Thompson, E. Sly, B. Poole and G. McKinlay.
The club's promising 'all rounder', Bill Fraser had been transferred out of Invercargill.  Verteran, Ian O'Grady had retired from cricket.
 Good gains for Union were John Anderson, a former High School batsman and a left hand batsman by the name of Robertshaw from Wellington.

Appleby's young players were back, but it had lost Colin Dobbie, a promising batsman who  had turned to athletics for the summer.
Although club stawlart, Bill Spence had retired the previous season, it did not take much for Appleby to presuade him to put his boots back on.

Georgetown was looking youthful, with the likes of Herb Hammond who contributed hugely to side in the 1955/56 season.

Marist  led by N. F. McGowan, with Bob Wills, Desmond McDermott, Brian Fletcher, Leo Ward and Brian Walsh. The side looked a strong team to beat.

Old Boys would again be tough with the likes of Geoff Murray, Neale Thompson, Roy Thompson, Alan Gilbertson, Ian Gilbertson and Sam Richardson who will be returning as full time member of the team.
Bob Harrington and Bruce Cockroft have both retired along with wicket keeper, Charlie Snow.
Coming up from the second grade were Jim Wood and John Lindsay.

Invercargill was growing in numbers and strength and had representative players such as Jim Gill, Guy Overton, Jack Alabaster, Eddie Morton, Stuart Morton and Doug Pethick.  The club would be looking at having a 2nd X1 with the increased membership.

There was also the Bluff X1 who's players had not changed from the previous season.

​ Southland Boys High X1 which would lose a number of their players, as usual, at the end of the season but had the steady influence of Ian Payne to carry them through.