What follows is a sumarry of the report presented to the Leinster Cricket Union's Autumn General Meeting by Brian O'Rourke.
New Clubs
Following the successful establishment of new clubs at Dundalk, Clonee and Adamstown the future is looking promising, with discussions taking place between Cricket Ireland, local authorities and local sports partnerships (LSP’s) in the following areas - Swords, Carlow, Greystones, Tyrrelstown, Longford, Cavan, Cabinteely, Tallaght & Ring Commons. Much work is being put into these projects and it is hoped several will be formally established and actively involved in cricket training/matches next season. New artificial pitches were installed into Porterstown Park, Mullingar and Adamstown (Corkagh Park) earlier this year while Fingal Co Co have recently committed to install new pitches at both Newbridge Park (Swords) and Tyrellstown (West Dublin).
Young Cricketers
Young Leinster cricketers continue to gain opportunities to further develop their games. Last December, ten promising cricketers took part in a seven-day training camp at the La Manga Club near Murcia in South East Spain. This follows on from previous camps held in India in recent years and gave the boys an excellent opportunity to train together and to benefit from the state-of-the-art training facilities at this resort. A further 12 boys will travel to Spain this December (17th-24th) to partake in this year’s training camp.
More transition year students are taking advantage of the South African school programme that to date has seen 16 Leinster cricketers spend time at Muir College, Uitenhague over the past eight years. Four Leinster boys (Jack Balbirnie, Michael Hogan, Thomas Anders and Benn Hoey) will travel to Muir College next January for an eight- week period.
Coaching
Over 50 coaches attended Coaching Courses during the year. Added to this many schoolteachers have attended similar courses in West and North Dublin in order for them to become more confident in delivering cricket sessions within their own schools. In July, Leinster ran a coaches seminar at Leinster Cricket Club where recently qualified coaches were kept up to date with current coaching trends, offered advice re equipment, and benefits of joining the ECBCA Coaches Association while they also got to observe and gain coaching advice from international cricketers John Mooney and Albert Van Der Merwe.
Cricket in Schools
Coaching visits continue to be delivered to schools around the city. West Dublin has seen a big increase in participation while a current project in Swords has seen four schools in that area receive weekly coaching sessions. New entrants into this year’s Leprechaun Cup included – Kilashee NS (Naas), Kill-of-the Grange, Rathfarnham Parish, Springdale NS and St John Bosco’s in Cabra. These new schools have brought numbers in this increasingly popular hardball competition to nearly 40. Precision Electric was announced as the new tournament sponsors this year. New equipment was offered to schools while more coaches were employed to work in schools and assist in the running of matches during May and June.
Next summer will see the introduction of a new Primary Schools ‘Super League’. This will cater for the six stronger schools currently taking part in the Leprechaun Cup. It will be run on league format and will provide these schools with higher standard of competition with games being held on a weekly basis. The Leprechaun Cup will remain as a competition for ‘developing schools’ around the province.
Kwik cricket festivals continue to be offered to schools and children in the 3rd & 4th (U’9’s) classes. Festivals in Rush, Blanchardstown, Sandymount, Skerries, Malahide proved very successful. The Fingal schools competition held at Rush CC has now been running for over 10 years. Continued efforts are being made to establish stronger and more strategic ‘club-school’ links. A recent document relating to this has been provided to all clubs in the Leinster area and covers best practice examples of establishing and maintaining long lasting links with local schools.
Pipers Hill School (Naas), Ardgillan Secondary School (Balbriggan), Newpark Comp (Blackrock) were all new entries into this year's secondary schools competitions. New schools partaking in next year’s competitions include:
Community [Cricket] Development Officers
Leinster Cricket and South Dublin Co Co recently joined forces with the appointment of a new cricket development officer for the South Dublin area. This will replicate the current position held by Reinhardt Strydom in Fingal. Andrew Leonard has recently commenced in this new role. This will be a great boost for cricket in South Dublin and will help attract new schools to the game and also look to increase participation and establish new clubs in areas like Clondalkin, Lucan, Tallaght and Rathfarnham.
Representative [Youth] Tours
Following on from the many interprovincial games played this summer Leinster underage sides embarked on six tours to the UK. All tours proved a big success while again the standard of cricket on all tours remains very high. The highlight of the summer was Leinster U’13 victories over both Gloucestershire and Yorkshire at the Taunton festival.
Leinster Development Manager (Nov 2011)