Flushed with the success in getting five out of six predictions right for the first round of the RSA Leinster Senior Cup, we take on the even more daunting task of reviewing R4 of Divisions 1 and 2 of the league that takes place this Bank Holiday Monday.
The current league table has Merrion and YMCA on top in D1with three wins each. Both have difficult matches with Merrion taking on The Hills and YMCA travelling to Clontarf. Over the past few years The Hills have had the edge on Merrion, beating them the last five times they have met, including in the final of the Irish Senior cup in 2012. The Hills also seem to have shrugged off their early season stupor and have strung together some good wins in the past couple of weeks. Merrion on the other hand have won their four competitive matches this year but their vaunted batting line up has not really got going. Difficult one to call and the winning sequence must come to an end sometime – but perhaps The Hills are just hitting form at the right time.
Until losing to Pembroke on Saturday, YMCA have come out on top in a couple of close encounters and are building a reputation as a tough side to put away. In the absence of some of their big guns from last year, their batting lacks depth and may be exposed by a well-balanced Clontarf side. Both sides are missing players but Clontarf are down to break YMCA’s run in the league.
Terenure have had a poor start to the season. They put in a much better performance against Clontarf in the cup on Saturday but even with home advantage they will struggle against the North County bowling attack. NC do have the ability to lose matches they should win but should still be favourites.
With both teams in the bottom half of the table, the match between Pembroke and Railway takes on an added importance. With everyone expecting The Hills to make a move up the table soon, [and Terenure struggling] this means that the two Sandymount teams could find themselves fighting it out to avoid one of the relegation places. It is early days and both teams are certainly capable of chalking up victories against any opposition but do they have the strength over a season. So a crucial match for both sides – Pembroke will be buoyed by their win over YMCA in the cup but Railway will also take heart from a narrow loss against Malahide. With Kevin O’Brien available to captain Railway – they might just shade it.
Predictions: wins for The Hills, North County, Clontarf and Railway.
In Division II the key match of the day in terms of promotion is probably the double pointer between Malahide and Dublin University. Malahide are unbeaten in D2 this year and one feels that if they secure the points in this game they will be well on their way to securing one of the promotion spots. Their batting has shown a lot more resilience of late and this may prove too much for a limited DU’s bowling attack. This could be a hard weekend for the students coming off a ten wicket drubbing by Cork County.
Leinster also have an important game which they need to win to get their season up and running. Losing to Pembroke IIs was not a good start and two attempts was not enough to get their match against Cork County played. A creditable loss against The Hills in the cup has brought some of their batsmen into form so they should be too strong for Merrion II’s who have not been able to repeat their early successes against Phoenix and Pembroke IIs.
Rush versus Balbriggan is a fixture that will ignite local passions. Balbriggan are a much stronger unit this year than last but still rely on a few key players. It really is anyone’s game – and neither side take much into the match from their outings on Saturday. We will go for a Home win.
The final match is between Cork County and Phoenix. Cork are unbeaten this year and have the prize scalp of Donemana under their belt in the Irish Cup. But they have not played much cricket so it is difficult to gauge whether they are likely to challenge for promotion. Last year they were in D3 and it is quite a step up in standard. A double point victory against DU [on Sunday] will have helped establish credentials though. Phoenix had a good win against Balbriggan on Saturday but haven’t really played well enough as a team this season. Cork to win in the Mardyke.
Predictions: wins for Malahide, Rush, Leinster and Cork County.
Teams:
Railway Union: Kevin O’Brien, Ciaran Divney, Kenny Carroll, Pat Collins, Paddy Conliffe, Rachit Gaur, Greg Lambert, Jay Singh, Tim Townsend, Josh Uddin and Saad Ullah
Leinster: C Mallon, G Delany, A Ward, H MacDonnell, P Johnston, JP O’Dwyer, D Coad, A Godfrey, B Azhar, J Kerrison, R Kenealy.
Merrion: Dominic Joyce (capt), Brett Thompson, Tyrone Kane, John Anderson, Ben Ackland, David Watkins, Dean Carolus, Simon Morrissey, James Short, Tyler Smith, Tom Stanton.
Merrion II: K Beasley, C O’Donoghue, N Brown, B Bhathal, P Blakeney, C Allwright, M Neville, I Joyce, W Baird, N Sharma, R Ensor.
Malahide: Callum Riches, Alan Reynolds, Fintan McAllister, Reinhardt Strydom, David Arnold, Peter Chase, George Deans, Jim Govan, Alessandro Morris, Peter Saville, Cameron Shoebridge.
Cork County: Ross Durity, Stephen Grobler, Morne Bauer, Robert Duggan, Abubakar Saddique, Andy Wooton, Sid Joshi, Oscar Cotter, Junaid Amin, Anthony O’Reilly, Ian Coleman 12th – Aidan Kellegher.
Clontarf: Bill Coghlan, Mark Collier, Eoghan Delany, Andrew Poynter, Joe Morrissey, Robert Forrest, Asim Nazir, Zander vd Merve, Conor D’Arcy, Paul Ryan, Adam Craig.
YMCA: A vd Merve,, T Fisher, A Bailey, P J Moor, S Singh, A Lewis, F Yousafraz, H Tentor, Y Ali Shah, R Chawla, P Flanagan.
DU: R Forrest, H Pike, J Tasman-Jones, R Walsh, T Gibbs, D Kapoor, W Verweord, V Mohanan, S Attwood, K O'Connor, W von Behr