With the last few contracts offered, we now have the final list of players who are officially contracted domestic cricketers. Congratulations to all those who get to earn money sippin' coffee and rolling the arm over this summer, hitting a few boundaries and what not. This second round of contracts doesn't really mean a whole lot and teams were only adding one or two players to their contracted lists. That essentially means that these lads who have been offered contracts in the second round are fringe squad members who probably won't feature too heavily.

Craig Cachopa and Bevan Small are the major exceptions. Auckland have offered the youngest Cachopa brother a contract and after the Cachopa brothers enjoyed a few years as the funkiest cricketing whanau in Aotearoa, Craig is the only one contracted this summer. Oldest bro Carl was last sighted playing for Auckland in early 2015 before he linked up with Sussex, playing a bunch of 2nd XI games and ESPN Cricinfo has no further record of Carl doing the cricket thing after June 2015.

Brad Cachopa was the Auckland wicket-keeper/batsman for the past six years and has since fell victim to the emergence of Glenn Phillips and Ben Horne, with Auckland rolling with Horne as their top w-k/batsman. Slipping quietly out of domestic cricket with a cheeky 75* in November last year, Brad hasn't been offered a contract and will probably bow out of domestic cricket with a First-Class average of 32.52. That's handy and with Carl owning a FC average of 31.62, the two older Cachopa bros can be reasonably proud of their respective careers.

Craig is now left to hold it down for the Cachopa clan and the thing about these Cachopa brothers is that they all have funky cricketing careers. Craig has already played FC cricket for Auckland, Wellington and Sussex, yet he's still only 25-years-old and returns to Auckland after accepting a contract with Sussex only to get an early release from that contract to make himself eligible for Aotearoa again - Cachopa earned a contract with Sussex as non-overseas player which is super valuable for English County teams and is why former Auckland seamer Matt Quinn's signed with Essex.

Brad and Carl left the game with averages in the low-30s, while Craig has a FC average of 36.63 and could be an influential batsman for Auckland. Cachopa can cover wicket-keeper as well which is handy and with Rob Nicol moving to Otago, Auckland are light on batting experience so Cachopa's (limited) experience is crucial to Auckland's squad. Their list of young batsmen is rather impressive though; Cachopa, Mark Chapman, Glenn Phillips, Sean Solia, Robert O'Donnell.

Small's second round contract is a little less interesting but still funky. Small has been on the domestic circuit since 2011 but has only played 15 FC games and while he's got impressive bowling numbers (FC: 28.71avg/3.65rpo | List-A: 25.18/5.54), CD aren't exactly low on seamers.

Doug Bracewell, Ryan McCone, Seth Rance, Blair Tickner and Ben Wheeler were all offered contracts ahead of Small and as a full-strength CD seam attack is likely to feature Wheeler, Bracewell and Rance, Small will have to prove himself better than McCone and/or Tickner who both featured heavily last summer. McCone and Tickner enjoyed greater opportunities as Small didn't play at all last summer, so now CD are full to the brim with seamers, nifty seamers at that.

Here's my Power Rankings with a sentence on why they are ranked where they are.

1)Canterbury

Key veterans and a plethora of young talent, plus a winning culture.

2) Wellington

The injection of Michael Bracewell and Logan van Beek rejuvenates a grizzly squad that'll bully teams.

3) Central Districts

Immense potential, just lacking the top-tier talent of Canterbury and Wellington.

4) Otago

Home of the biggest group of slept on domestic cricketers. Could easily jump ahead of the three teams ranked ahead of them, gotta show that first though.

5) Northern Districts

How much ND rely on their young seam attack will play a major factor on their performances this season. They're probably a season or two away from being a menacing prospect and given the number of Blackcaps they have, this is no bad ranking.

6) Auckland

Tarun Nethula and Lockie Ferguson will need to tear through teams as they don't have much else in the bowling stable. A young batting line up could go either way.

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