The best and worst of ...... Dublin University

Part three of our best and worst series looks at the fortunes of Dublin University since 2001. As is well know, Dublin University are somethng of a unique club in Leinster cricket, currently playing seven league matches in the first half of the season.

Even in the period that this article covers, there have been several periods when the competitions that the University have played in have changed. Until 2004, Dublin University were playing six games a season in the old Lewis Traub competition, allowing them to qualify these rankings. From the 2005 season, the clubs were split into groups of three or four, reducing the umber of games Trinity played each year, and meaning they no longer qualified for our rankings from the start of the 2006 season.

The Lewis Traub League (now called the DCM League) stopped in 2009, with the team playing in Division 2 in 2010 (finishing bottom). The preceding three year period that the ratings are calculated didn't contain enough games, so the students dropped pout of out ratings until the 2014 season, with Trinity being back in Division 2 since a 2011 promotion from Division 3.

All that explains the large gap in the graph below, and means there needs to be a slight rider to our picks for the best and worst (the worst especially) - there may have been a lower low in the period from 2009-2014.

Dublin University's high - rating 79.970 - ranking - 19th - date May 13 2001 - after win over YMCA on better run rate

It has been a long time since Dublin Universty's last purple patch - the 1960s saw three Senior Cups and the 1966 Senior League. 1970 saw the last piece of Cricket Leinster silverware, and whilst the 2001 vintage may not have matched that vintage it is the best Trinity team of the 21st century (so far).

The high point was reached after a good win over YMCA (scorecard here courtesy of Cricket Europe), and a win that was set up by a 23 year old batsman by the name of Ed Joyce. The Trinity team was full of quality, with Ireland player Conor Hoey, the Clontarf pair of Paddy Lee and Ian Synnott, Merrion's John Blakeney and YMCA's Johnny Harte. This win was all about Joyce, who scored 111* with the next highest being Conor Hoey's 20.

The previous season had seen Trinity qualify for the semi finals of the League Cup, but unfortunately the win over YMCA was the only victory in 2001 and it was downhill after that. 

Dublin University's low - rating 35.040 - ranking - 51st - date May 31 2005 - after 128 run loss to CYM

As the opportunities to play lessened (as stated above, there were only three matches per season from 2005), the University's ranking fell, and reached it's lowest in late May 2005. As is normally the way with University teams, turnover is high and there was only one survivor from the 2001 team - John Blakeney. The team were on the wrong side of a 128 run thrashing by CYM with the Cricket Europe scorecard being able to viewed here. Warren Hinkel hit 104 as CYM ran up 290-5, with none of the bowlers really having a good day.

Mark Lane scored 57, but no one else passed 25 as the University made 162. Other names that ay be recognised throughout Leinster are Hugh Cashell and Michael O'Herlihy, as well as a cetain Dom Joyce at the top of the order, another future Ireland player to have passed through College Park.

That low point was the start of nearly ten years in the wilderness, but the 2016 season saw the start of a renaissance, with the team finishing fourth in Divison 2, their best season since 2009, and a finish that has not been bettered in the league for a long, long time.