RSA Open Competitions: Division 1
It is certainly too early in the season to be talking about ‘top of the table’ and relegation clashes. But the results from last weekend provide a certain focus to this weekend's games as the four winners from the first round of RSA D1 matches pair off. Obviously the same applies to the four losers.
So teams going into this weekend will be very anxious to maintain momentum [at the top] and stake out a place as early leaders while those who lost last weekend will be equally concerned to avoid getting tagged so early as being in the shake up for relegation.
Ahead of the first Inter-provincial match in The Vineyard on Monday, The Hills host Merrion in a finely balanced encounter. Merrion had a very convincing victory over a somewhat undercooked Leinster last week. The Hills won against Railway Union in a much tighter match and may benefit from the experience. The Hills performed well with both bat and ball and another strong all-round performance will be needed tomorrow. Merrion put up a massive score against Leinster thanks to a John Anderson century [and 80 from Tyrone Kane], which effectively put the match beyond Leinster. Merrion have a strong batting line-up and an all-new bowling attack. It will be very interesting to see how it does on the faster and bouncier wickets in north Dublin.
Merrion go into the match with one change from last week with Peter Blakeney coming in to strengthen the middle order. There is no news on selection from The Hills.
The Merrion team is, D Joyce, B Ackland, B Thompson, J Anderson, T Kane, P Blakeney, D Poder, D Watkins, A O’Brien, N Rowe, R McDonald.
The other game involving last week’s winners is between YMCA and North County. The match is on at Claremount Road with the wicket fortunately spared the worst of the damage caused by vandalism to the YMCA square. As North County showed last week against Pembroke they have one of the most destructive batting orders capable of putting any attack to the sword and with John Mooney coming in at seven they have depth as well. With Richardson, Sheil, Mooney and Armstrong all in the runs there is also some early season form to fall back on.
The key battle in the match may well resolve around how well the YMCA top order deals with the North County’s opening attack. Last week North County relied on third and fourth change [Coughlan and Bertram] to take the match away from Pembroke. But if Strydom, Singh and Bray can get YMCA off to a fast start it can be very difficult for the bowling team to recover.
For many early season pundits, it is YMCA that are seen to have the best all round strength in the league this year with a string of seasoned players capable of winning the match with either bat or ball. In a strong and varied attack, Singh and Ali took the bulk of the wickets last week but YMCA can also call on Johnston, Strydom, Van der Merve and Tector.
The YMCA team for the weekend is: A van der Merve, J Cassidy, R Strydom, S Singh, J Bray, J Tector, T Johnston, R Garth, A Lewis, A Bailey, Y Shah.
Unfortunately no team selections submitted by North County.
The third match is between Phoenix and Railway Union in the Park. As both clubs have much changed sides from last year it is difficult to assess performance this early in the season. Railway had a win against Merrion in a friendly but in the cold weather not much was learnt. Against The Hills in a much more meaningful encounter last week they bowled well enough in keeping The Hills down to 228/7, but lost early wickets and ultimately fell well short. There is likely to be a lot of pressure on Kevin O’Brien to make a big score each weekend.
Phoenix need to get a foothold in the league as early as possible. They have a number of new faces who may take a while to find their feet and they will be looking for contributions with bat and ball from the Anders brothers and skipper Conor Kelly. Top score last week was S Ali with 23, so the priority must be for big runs from someone in the top order.
There is one change in the Phoenix team for Saturday as Corie Dickeson comes in for David Ford. The selected team is: C Dickeson, M Ahmed, T Anders, R Jeggels, C Kelly, S Ali, R Anders, S Raza, A Leonard, S Davis, T Balogh.
There are no selections from Railway Union.
The final match is between Pembroke and current champions Leinster. Pembroke comfortably won the D2 last year as well as getting to the final of the RSA Leinster Senior Cup. They lost the first match last weekend to North County where their bowling was put under a lot of pressure. Despite an 82 from Andrew Balbiernie they were well short of the North County total of 240/5.
Leinster will want to forget about their match against Merrion. Apart from opening bowler Bilal Azher who took 4/50, their bowling leaked runs and ended up conceding 286 runs [and did well not keep the score below 300 in the closing overs]. This is an area of play that they will have to improve greatly on over the coming weeks. It is more difficult to assess the batting as once you loss early wickets in chasing a large total the rest of the innings loses relevance. Pete Johnston made a patient 28* but runs will be needed right through the innings in most matches.
Pembroke will be greatly strengthened this weekend with the return of Barry McCarthy. Bill Whaley also returns to strengthen the bowling. They replace Harry Balbiernie and Lorcan Tucker. The Leinster team is unchanged.
The selected teams are:
Pembroke A Balbiernie, R Kelly, J Balbiernie, A Eastwood, R Hastie, R Hopkins, P Lawson, B McCarthy, B McDonald, R Russell and Bill Whaley.
Leinster: C Mallon, B Azhar, P Byrne, G Delaney, PJohnston, M Jones, J Kerrison, W Lennon, H MacDonnell, S Moreton, J P O’Dwyer.