The number of youth players participating in cricket in the Leinster area continues to grow with all three sectors adding competitions to their programme for 2012.
In the primary school section the Leprechaun Cup continued in its knock out format, and over an eight week period 32 schools competed, with many schoolchildren new to cricket being given the opportunity to play hardball games during their primary school years. Added to this was a second competition for schools called the Super League. This was aimed at the six schools from last year’s Leprechaun Cup who were more advanced in the game. They played each other once giving each school 5 games with the two tops schools playing a final for the Super league cup.
The Leprechaun Cup was won by Star of The Sea N.S., Sandymount who beat Castleknock N.S. in the final by 35 runs. The Super League was won by Delgany N.S. who beat St. Andrew’s by 7 wickets. Both competitions were very successful, due in no small part to the work put in by Brian O’Rourke and his team.
At secondary school level in the boys’ competitions, the weather played a part in the non completion of two of the competitions which were held over until September. There was one new league added this year, an U14B league, and the U13 cup was changed to a league format. The cups went to a variety of schools, Belvedere beat St. Andrew’s in the Senior cup, Blackrock beat Terenure in the Alf O’Connell league, St. Andrew’s beat Balbriggan in the Junior cup, St. Mary’s beat C.U.S. in the U14A league, Castleknock beat The High School in the U14B league, St. Mary’s beat St. Andrew’s in the U13A league and Aravon beat Wilson’s Hospital in the U13B Cup. There were also a number of new schools competing this year, Colaiste Pobail Setanta, St. Gerard’s, Drimnagh Castle, Dundalk and Mount Temple.
The Leinster Schools’ Development side beat the MCC by 5 wickets. An earlier match v the Leprechauns was abandoned due to weather. Similarly, the two day match v the Ulster Schools ended in a draw after a deluge of rain left the ground unplayable after tea on the first day.
In the girls’ schools’ competitions again the weather played its part, but all competitions were completed. In Senior 1 Wesley beat Alexandra, Senior 2 The High School beat Rathdown, Junior 1 Wesley beat The High School, Junior 2 The High School beat Alexandra, 1st year A Alexandra beat Muckross and 1st year B Mount Anville beat Mount Sackville. New schools to enter competitions this year were Skerries Community School and St. Gerard’s. There is growing enthusiasm for girls’ cricket in schools which is very encouraging to see, but far fewer girls than boys would continue to play cricket during the summer in clubs.
At club level, the weather was a very big factor in the state of exhaustion which set in amongst club youth organisers. A significant number of matches were recorded as rain affected draws, but none the less all competitions were completed, with clubs in contention for league honours making extra efforts to complete all their matches. The number of matches played in 2012 was up by 41 reflecting the introduction of new leagues at U13C for boys and U17 for girls. It was good to see North County, Pembroke and Phoenix entering girls’ teams for the first time and Greystones entered a boys team at U11. YMCA dominated the competitions, winning eight competitions and being runners up in a further four. The LCU won just one of the All Ireland competitions, YMCA at U13. Clontarf at U11 and Pembroke at U15 came up against formidable opposition in Waringstown and Donemana.
At Interprovincial level, Leinster retained the U13 Interpro title in Cork in a rain affected competition, at U15 they were runners up to the North West in the NCU area and at U17 Leinster lost to the NCU and the game against the North West could not be played due to the weather.
On tour the U13 team travelled to Taunton and exceeded the excellent performance of 2011 with wins over Cornwall, Gloucestershire, Yorkshire and Cheshire. The final game against Kent was cancelled due to the weather but Leinster had done enough to win the festival for the first time. The U15 team almost equalled the U13s when they travelled to Wolverhampton and had wins over Norfolk, Cumbria, Staffordshire and Lincolnshire. Their only loss came against Cheshire. The U11 team also made a clean sweep of their matches with good wins against, Eryri District, Nth Wales and the North. Leinster also beat the North in the annual U12 and U14 matches.
The Leinster girls were equally successful on their tours. The U19 girls had wins over Somerset, Buckinghamshire and Dorset, at U15 the Leinster girls’ team beat Wales Dragons, Kent and Buckinghamshire at the Malvern festival and the U13 team were also unbeaten with comprehensive wins over Eryri District and Nth Wales. A planned U17 festival of cricket including Nth Leinster, Sth Leinster and Ulster had to be cancelled due to the rain, but an U17 Irish team was selected, the majority of which were Leinster players, and they completed a successful tour to Scotland winning three matches and losing one by the slimmest of margins.
The Youth & Schools’ section would like to thank all those who give their time and effort voluntarily to facilitate the huge number of children playing cricket in Leinster. In particular, thanks are due to Brian O’Sullivan who, amongst other things, organises all the league and cup competitions including the All Irelands and keeps all the results up to date on the website. Also thanks are due to the leaders of each branch, Donal O’Sullivan (Youth clubs), Stephen Tonge (Boys Secondary Schools), Una Budd (Girls secondary schools) and Brian O’Rourke/Development officers/Deryck Vincent (Leprechaun Cup).