The up and downs of cricket were well illustrated in an eventful weekend which saw The Hills come out on top in an exciting RSA Irish Senior Cup Final on Saturday only for their 1st and 2nd XIs to lose key league matches the following day.
In the three other cup finals involving Leinster teams to be decided, Merrion were successful in two [Minor Cup – Merrion VIIs and the Pilkington Plate, Womens 1st XI] and Leinster in the third [Minor II Cup – Leinster VIIs.]
Leaving aside the glory of the cups the most important result of the weekend was undoubtedly North County’s four wicket win in Division 1 in the refixed match with The Hills. A congested fixture list has made it difficult for The Hills [they have still to play the RSA [Alan Murray] T20 Final on Tuesday]. The result is that The Hills now drop to 7th place and the second relegation spot behind North County [+8 points] and Railway [+ 10]. What this means is that The Hills really have to win one of their final two matches to stay up. [A rain affected result in the refix against Merrion would leave them equal points with North County going into the final round of matches]. Their final two matches are against YMCA and Merrion who are battling it out for the championship. The one positive note is that Railway and North County have to play each other and discounting the likelihood of a tie this means that if The Hills can get a win in either of their remaining matches they are safe.
The position at the top of Division 3 and the crucial promotion spots into D2 have also been clarified but there are a lot of matches still to play in this league. Thanks to their full point win over Laois, YMCA II have gone top with 156 points from nine games. Clontarf [140] who had a similar results against The Hills II, are now second, just ahead of their weekend opponents. North County II [who lost to bottom team Civil Service] are still in with a shout but with games running out Laois’s chances of promotion are all but gone. At the other end of the table a big win for North Kildare against Leinster II sees the two teams swop places with North Kildare now nine points ahead in sixth place. Despite their win at the weekend Civil Service are still last, 10 plus points adrift of Leinster II.
In D4 Phoenix II’s win against Railway II pretty much sows up the league. Merrion III, with a couple of matches in hand in second place also won against third place Malahide II but would need to pretty much win all their remaining games, and Phoenix lose all their’s, to win the league. YMCA had a big win over Pembroke III and are back in the hunt for promotion. Pembroke III and Mullingar both lost yesterday and look to be beyond saving.
Finally, the promotion race in D5. Malahide III are already champions and Greystones [2nd] win against third placed Leinster III strengthens further their position in the second spot. Of course with Malahide IIs losing ground to Merrion III in D4 there may be no place for the D5 winners to go.
It is an incredibly tight finish to the top four leagues with a great many permutations possible on the field of play. When all that is over there will be important decisions for the Open Competitions Committee and for some clubs.