Now 26, Rutgers had a fairly modest first season at Craeyenhout in 2016, making just 165 runs at 13.75, but he was undoubtedly hampered by a broken finger. As against that, HBS found him to be an unusually successful youth coach.
He has a somewhat surprising profile for an Australian player-coach: rather than playing for one of Perth’s first-grade clubs, Rutgers has been one of leading batsmen in the relatively minor Suburban Turf Association, where he racked up the runs for the Ocean Ridge and Tuart Hill clubs.
This summer, however, he has been playing for the Karratha Kats in the West Pilbara competition, in the iron ore and natural gas producing area of Western Australia’s North-west. He represented West Pilbara in last month’s Country Week tournament, making 405 runs at 45.20 and being selected in the All-Stars XI at the end of the competition.
In the lead-up to Country Week he had represented WA in the national Country Carnival in Wollongong, only the second West Pilbara player to do so.
He had seasons with the English Cheshire League club Hyde and the West of England Premier League side Congressbury before joining HBS last year.
21-year-old left-handed and wicketkeeper Jaron Morgan has a more conventional background, although he, too, began his youth cricket career at Ocean Ridge.
These days, though, he plays his club cricket for first-grade side Joondalup, where his captain is former Dutch international Michael Swart.
Born in South Africa, Morgan arrived in Australia with his family at the age of two, and has represented Western Australia at under-17, under-19 and under-23 level. He made his mark in his first under-17 championship match, hitting 103 against the Northern Territory in the 2012-13 season.
He went on to play in the national Under-19 championships that same year, completing a successful tournament with 87 against Victoria.
Morgan was selected in the Australian under-19 side which visited New Zealand later that season, and went on to play in the 2014 Under-19 World Cup. He captained the team which played a four-match ODI series and one Test against England Under-19 in April 2015.
This season he has been in good form with the bat in first-grade matches, hitting 497 runs at 37.17, including a highest score of 139 against Subiaco-Floreat (made from just 118 deliveries with twelve fours and six sixes), an innings in which he shared a 234-run opening stand with Swart.
HBS have also recruited another Australian, Elliott Forbes, to coach their second team. Last season Victorian Forbes coached Overgangsklasse club Olympia Gouda.