It’s déjà vu all over again.
Last week, we had one of those weeks with selection. Anyone who is involved in getting teams out will know what I mean. Players being evasive, players who, bizarrely, put their families first instead of running around a field hitting balls with sticks, and we were really struggling to get eleven eligible players together for our third team. Hours and hours went into it, but come Thursday, we had nine, and that appeared to be that.
We – somewhat reluctantly – called our opponents and enquired about a refix, but their groundshare situation meant that they were unable to accommodate us. There is no problem here, and they had no obligation to shuffle things around just because we were struggling to get our act together.
At no stage did we even consider conceding a walkover.
I was expecting a terrible day. The weather was - of course – unpredictable with a strong likelihood of rain, and we had been easily beaten by this team a fortnight earlier. The prospect of travelling to get wet, cold and easily beaten was a deeply unattractive one. But travel we would.
As fate would have it, two players managed to make themselves available at the last minute. The weather wasn’t great, but I have played in far worse, and we ended up winning by nine wickets. I even had a good day with the ball – and those days are becoming increasingly rare. It was a minor triumph, and after a very disappointing start to the season, we finally felt like we had turned a corner and had some momentum.
I was looking forward to building on that and playing today.
This week, we had a smorgasbord of playing options, and there were some disappointed people when the teams were announced.
And then at 5pm yesterday – just twenty hours before the game was due to start – we got a text (not a phone call) telling us that our opponents would not be travelling because they are unable to field a team. This is a regular occurrence for teams outside the M50.
So that’s eleven people who had organised their weekends around playing let down with next to no notice. I imagine that whoever was on teas-duty had been out and bought the ingredients to feed twenty-two players, and will now be on sandwiches for the next three days. Hours put into sending texts and checking availability, as well as a difficult selection meeting as we worked out who we were going to disappoint this week.
The season has been stop/start, such are the vagaries of fixtures, but this should have been week two of four consecutive weeks of games.
And because of the development league (no complaints here, I think it is fantastic idea), we are already down to twelve games this season. Now it is eleven. The weather might mean that we are in single figures by the end of the season. If you can call that a season.
I don’t know what problems our absent opponents had this week. It could have been a perfect storm, and they may have spent hours in vain trying to scrape a team together.
What I do know is this:
This happens to teams outside Dublin regularly.
Telling us that they won’t be fulfilling the fixture at 5pm on a Friday is rude and disrespectful.
They didn’t even enquire about the possibility of a refix, implying strongly that they had no stomach to travel.
They have lost four of their first six games (they beat us, though!), so promotion looks unlikely. And as they can’t get relegated, the points penalty is all but meaningless.
We have been here before. We made a fuss about a similar situation last year, and we got lots of sympathy (and, I expect, accusations of sanctimony behind the scenes), but a year on, we are frustrated and disrespected again.
You know, pretty much every away game for us means a round trip of at least two and a half hours. In my first season in the club, we had to travel to Slieve Bloom with nine. That’s a long way to go to get a beating, but a walkover wasn’t even considered.
I am sorry if that sounds sanctimonious, and I am all too aware that our own perfect storm may just be around the corner, but I also know that we are organised and we work hard to ensure that we fulfil our commitments every week.
I am sorry to say it, but I have my doubts that every club in the LCU is the same.
Enough is enough.
Isn’t it?