The full-time fireman and part-time bat-maker is not collecting any old wood — it is English Willow.
And it is awaiting transformation into bespoke cricket bats.
Lockrose also breathes life into broken, bruised and battered bats as well.
They are skills which are in growing demand.
The self-taught bat-maker started by repairing bats for his son, Otago left-arm spinner bowler Ben Lockrose.
Then he had a crack at making them.
But his hobby has ballooned into a boutique business.
He now supplies Otago players Max Chu and Llew Johnson with bats as well. Through that sponsorship arrangement, word spread and RU Cricket was born.
The business is burgeoning even if he is committed to the narrative "this is just really a hobby".
"It has built up over probably seven years since I started tinkering and doing a few repairs.
"I started by keeping Ben’s bats going and then you do a few people a favour, and then the favours turn into a bit of a battering system where I was repairing bats for bottles of wine.
"So I was getting quite a good wine cellar going.
"And then at the end of last season, after chatting to Ben and Max, they said, ‘look, you’ve got to start charging people for your time’.
"It took a bit of persuading to sort of make it officially a business."
Once he had a business, he needed a name.
The RU in RU Cricket is short for Ruby — his dog. If you look at the stickers closely, you will also see the name Mol — that is his other dog.
He sources his English willow from a small dealer in the UK and it arrives as a part-made or blank.
"Part of the process for making the bat is the pressing, and that's one of the most crucial phases of making a good bat. I don't have a mechanical press, so at the moment I have to buy part-mades.
"It’s basically a bat that's pressed, and they've cut a raw handle into it."
From there he shapes them into the finished product.
"If someone likes a particular shape, then that's the shape I'll make."
Some players are more particular than others.
"Those pro guys really know what they want, and they've all got little quirks, I guess, about what they're after.
"So I try and obviously accommodate that."
Good English willow is not cheap, but Lockrose tries to keep his prices down. His bats start from "around $600".
"If you really wanted to buy a bat from one of the top-notch bat makers, you can pay up to nearly three or four grand now."
Ouch.
Lockrose does not have a background in woodwork. He does not have a background in cricket, either.
"I only got into cricket through Ben. So it just became a passion because he became so passionate about it.
"As a young fellow, I was just helping him, throwing balls at the nets, and played a few games, club games, just sort of lower-grade stuff with him when he was smaller.
"But now I'm pretty terrible, to be fair," moments after checking the Volts’ score on his phone.
