An new and enhanced News & Media section has been launched today on the Cricket Leinster website. It is by way of a pilot test for a major upgrade of the site which is planned for the off-season. While the module is fully functional [and users shouldn’t notice any difference in the way it is accessed] it is actually hosted on a new platform. The only downside is that until the complete site is upgraded there will be no news items on the Home Page - only a link through to the News & Media landing page.

What are the advantages. Firstly it has been designed with mobile users in mind. With over two thirds of visitors to the site doing so from their mobile phones the lack of a proper responsive architecture has been a growing problem. This is addressed here and will be for the rest of the website when it is upgraded. If you want to have easy access to the articles on the website on your phone you should go to the landing page and add it to your home screen.

Apart from the improved access for mobile users the current upgrade also facilitates the embedding of video content, adds benefits for our sponsors and partners, allows key articles to display for a longer period of time without rolling off the bottom of the page, has a whole new set of categories to make articles easier to find [it is also easier to use the key word search]. Over 3500 items have been brought across from the old site - but there is still work to be done in adding categories to historic articles.

Finally, moving the module onto a separate platform will reduce traffic on the main site whose performance has suffered this year due to the numbers accessing it.