It's certainly not that Broes failed to tick boxes in his ACT Premier Cricket first grade career - far from it - but the mental toll it took on the returning St Pat's Old Boys star was unforgiving.

Broes racked up five half centuries over his past two seasons of ACT first grade cricket and had significant representative performances, including a Country Cricket Invitational Series half century for ACT Country earlier this year.

He also had six appearances for the ACT Aces in the Plan B Regional Bash, hitting 45 runs in the 2019-20 grand final.

Broes did make several Royal Hotel Cup appearances for St Pat's Old Boys in 2020-21, notching up a pair of half centuries in the process.

Now he's hopeful the extra time around the team will bring out the best in his game.

Coming into a team where many familiar faces are still around means a lot to Broes, who is hoping to find himself in a positive atmosphere in order to reconnect with the game of cricket.

"It's going to be exciting to play with those guys again. Most of them were still playing when I left," he said.

"I'm looking forward to trying to regather the reason why I fell in love with the game. Over the last couple of years I feel like I lost that enjoyment but I'm hoping that playing with mates back here will help get that back."

Broes said there is a level of frustration that he couldn't continue to pursue top level cricket opportunities in Canberra, but he said there's still a drive to further his game as much as he can in his home city.

"I think living away from home was a big challenge and I think the expectations I put on myself and the pressure I put on myself to get higher honours - plus telling myself to perform at a certain level in games and at training - led to me mentally cooking myself," he said.

"It's frustrating because I'd worked really hard to get myself into a position to play some high level cricket, and then not to be able to cope mentally with it. That's a tough pill to swallow.

"But from a country perspective there's so many opportunities now, compared to even 10 to 15 years ago. There's so many platforms to be able to play high level cricket, which is so important.

"Opportunities weren't always as good compared to the cities and I think we're very quickly catching up. If all goes well, it would be great to still get in some representative cricket here."

With team training likely to resume within the coming weeks, dependant on public health orders, it gives Broes the chance to reconnect with the Saints.

"I've had a couple of months off to treat a back issue but I feel like this week should be a good chance to really get back into it and start hitting balls again," he said.

"I don't think there's been any major gains or losses from last year's Pat's team, and that team was strong, so we'll see if there's somewhere I can fit in.

"There's some great youth and a couple of experienced heads around."

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