After the break for rain [and the RSA Irish Senior Cup] last weekend, we have the third round of the RSA Leinster Senior League [D1/D2] scheduled for tomorrow. Again the weather forecast is not great [in fact it is pretty awful] so we may be faced with a lot of re-fixtures over the next few weeks.
The four scheduled matches in D1 are:
Railway U v YMCA
Merrion v Phoenix
Pembroke v The Hills
North County v Leinster
All matches have their own particular interest. The Hills and YMCA [both unbeaten] are playing away and are likely to face stern tests against Railway U and Pembroke respectively. On paper and current form at least The Hills look too strong for Pembroke who see captain Theo Lawson return to the fray. The match between Railway U and YMCA could be much closer. With Pat Collins and Kevin O’Brien both in the runs and wickets already this year, Railway look like a possible [virtual] outsider wager.
The Pembroke team for Saturday is T Lawson (captain), R Kelly (wk), J Balbirnie, A Eastwood, R Hastie, R Russell, P Lawson, B McCarthy, B McDonald, D Nicol and B Whaley. Theo Lawson returns for Andrew Balbiernie who is unavailable. The other change from two weeks ago is D Nicol for R Hopkins
The Hills have named ten players with one to be confirmed, N Shaukat, L Clinton, N Pretorius, M Baumgart, O Khan, D Calder, M Sorensen, J Clinton, J Andrews, C McLoughlin.
The YMCA team for the match against Railway U is A van der Merve, J J Cassidy, R Strydom, S Singh, J Bray, T Johnston, Y Shah, L Cole, R Holm, A Bailey and J Tector with R Garth and A Lewis being replaced by Holm and Shah.
There is no information on the Railway team.
In the remaining two matches, Phoenix and Leinster have difficult away fixtures if they are to record their first wins of season. Merrion will be anxious to bounce back from their poor showing against The Hills a fortnight ago and the North County are running into some good form at both 1st and 2nd XIs. So home teams favourites in both cases.
The Merrion side sees Tom Stanton come in for David Watkins [with Damian Poder unavailable]. The full team is D Joyce, B Ackland, J Anderson, B Thompson, N Rowe, T Kane, R McDonald, A O’Brien, T Stanton, P Blakeney, and J Short.
The Phoenix team is C Kelly, M Ahmed, T Anders, S Ali, R Jeggels, R Anders, A Chester, S Raza, A Leonard, S Davis and T Balogh. A Chester being the only change from the last match against Railway Union.
The North County team is Ciaran Garry, Rory O'Keeffe, John Mooney, Eddie Richardson, Conor Sheil, Tomas Sheil, Conor Armstrong, Ruane Jones, Adam Coughlan, Brian Smyth and Ian Bertram. Bertram and Smyth are the only changes from the team that won two weeks ago and come in for S Getgate and M Singh.
I have no team for Leinster but will put up if they arrive during the day.