Nets begin Tuesday 15th Feb in St Marys.

U11 Boys 6-7.

U13 boys 7-8.

Girls 8-9.

U15  and  U17 boys will train with the 1st, 2nd and 3rd team squads on tuesday evenings in Gonzaga.

Subs €40 payable in advance.

Contact Hugh Mullen 0863921893 for details.

The 2011 Boys U 13 Tour will be to Birmingham for the 20/20 Finals.

The itinerary will include two matches and attendance at Finals Day.

Dates 25TH to 28TH August.

All Moms and Dads welcome.

Contact Hugh Mullen 0863921893 for details.

Indoor Cricket begins Tuesday  November 2nd @ 6pm in St Marys.

All welcome.

Contact Collette Mc Donnell @ 0877813575 or Hugh Mullen @ 0863921893.

The Final Innings

Well, we ended our magnificent season on a high note on Wednesday, August 22^nd with a convincing win over Terenure CC. Having won the toss, our Captain, Conor O’Gorman, elected to put Terenure in to bat and they scored a very respectable 102 runs but lost 7 wickets in the process (67 net) with Hugo Fanagan on 3 for 25 off 4 overs and Tom Murray on 2 for 13 off 4 being the best of our bowlers. In reply, we made 111 and lost only 4 wickets. Remarkably, our first two and last two pairings didn’t lose any wickets. Our two Leinster Province representatives, Conor & Tom, batted in the first and last pairings respectively and, reminiscent of two bookends, each scored 20 runs. It was a fitting end to a great season for the two lads and, more importantly, for the entire U11 squad of players.

The vast majority of the League & Cup winning double team will, of course, be moving up to Under 13 level cricket next year. While this will be a big step up for the lads I’ve no doubt that they will adjust to the transition. Next year will be the more difficult but they’ll have two years playing at Under 13 level so by the second year we should be really challenging for honours. By my reckoning, of the 18 lads who played in the League for the U11s this summer 6 (Eoin Byrne, Milo Egan, Fionn O’Sullivan, Donal McAuliffe, Tom O’Neill & Will Anderson) will be eligible to play at U11 level next year.

For the record, we ended our League campaign on 200 points (P11 W10 L1) finishing 40 points clear of YMCA & Clontarf (both P11 W8 L3).

What a fantastic day we had yesterday on the Family Fun Day. The morning started in a damp and drizzly way, but by the time proceedings got underway the sun came out and only got better as the day went on. We had a wonderful turnout and well done to Hugh & Emma Mullen for organising a hugely enjoyable ‘World Cup’. The barbeque was a great success thanks to the cooking skills of Frank Murray & John Byrne. Not one “F Word” was uttered all day by our celebrity chefs and there was a total clearout of all the burgers and homemade cakes on sale in the shop. Apart from being a fun day it was a very successful fundraising event for the LCC Youths Section.

Congratulations to all the winners on the day. Sorry I wasn’t on hand to collect my ‘Parent of the Year’ award from Hugh. I’m sure the irony of the POTY not being present to collect his award having slipped away to play golf wasn’t lost on those present!  Now that all the competitive trophies and awards have been presented, I thought I would complete my final blog of the season by presenting my own awards. Here they are:-

The Band of Brothers Award goes to ……

Down through the years sets of brothers have represented their countries in cricket. One thinks especially of the famous Australian sets of brothers such as the Chappell, Waugh and, more recently, the Hussey brothers.  Well, our Under 11 team has its own sets of brothers and this award goes to the Fanagan boys (Hugo & Harry) and the O’Neill boys (Eoin & Tom).

The ‘Et tu Brutus’ Award goes to…….

Joe Prendergast’s Dad, Peter. Having not only grown up in the Clontarf area and played for Clontarf CC for 30 years (including about 20 years for the 1^st team) Peter is the clear winner of this stabbing your old club in the back award.

Not content with returning to his old stomping ground on Friday, 20^th August to witness Joe playing a vital part in winning the Claremont Cup against Clontarf, he brought Joe back to Castle Avenue two days later to play his part in winning the vital League game which effectively saw us win the title.

The Squeaky-Bum-Time Award goes to …….

Joint winners of this Award, the two dramatic matches against Pembroke in the Cup (on June 5^th) and Rush in the League (on August 15^th) when we won both matches by only one run. Who said cricket is a boring game!

The Too Much Information Award goes to ……..

Our Scorer and blogger, yours truly. At a recent match against Malahide, I was talking to my fellow scorer and I spotted a face I recognised among the Malahide contingent. I said to him, quite innocently, ‘When we played against you last year, I scored with that guy.’ The moral of the story is when using cricket terminology ensure you’re talking to someone in the know lest you be accused of making somewhat dodgy revelations about your private life!

The Where Have You Been All These Years? Award goes to …..

The Molins Cup was presented to our U11A League winning team last Wednesday. The official title of this Cup is ‘The Molins Perpetual Trophy’. The Cup was presented to the Leinster Cricket Union for the winners of the U11 League back in 1985 by two former stalwarts of the sadly now defunct Carlisle CC, Stephen & Rodney Molins. Rodney’s son, Jason, is a former Leinster CC player and Ireland Captain. Leinster CC won the Cup three years in a row from 1985 to 1987. Remarkably, the Club hasn’t won it since then so we welcome it back to LCC after an absence of 23 years (you can see it and the Fingal Cup and Claremont Cup in the trophy cabinet in the bar).       

 And last but not least……

 The LCC Dinner Ladies Award goes to ……..

All those ladies who unselfishly gave up their Sunday mornings throughout the summer to source scones, cake, biscuits, make teas and coffees for the participants and parents attending training sessions and serve them up with a smile. A big thank you to Sally Byrne, Anne Fitzgerald, Siobhan Gallagher, Miriam McEniff, Helen Murray & Helene O’Brien.

 All good things come to an end and this summer dominated by cricket (at least in our house) has certainly been one to savour. Not only did our U11 teams win three trophies but they provided great entertainment to us in the process and we thank them for their wonderful efforts. Now, unfortunately, it’s back to school time and cricket must make way for other sports such as football and rugby. May 2011 seems a long time away but I trust that the pleasure you have derived from your sons’ efforts on the cricket pitch this summer will sustain you over the winter months. Bye for now and I look forward to scoring and blogging for you again next year.

 Michael O’Gorman

August 30^th 2010

Congratulations to Brian, Mark and the boys on winning the U 11a league.

Ten wins out of eleven.

So the 11s sweep all three trophies, As League and Cup and Bs League.

THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN

I posted my last blog in the aftermath of the crushing defeat to Lurgan in the semi-final of the All Ireland Cup. You may recall that I talked about the lads getting back up on the horse following that defeat. Not content with doing just that, they have since ‘galloped’ to seven successive victories – five for the A team and two for the B team.

Let me start with the B team. Having won 7 of their 8 games in the South Section of the Under 11B League (our last League win was a walkover against Phoenix) we faced Old Belvedere A in the semi-final of the Claremont Cup at Rathmines on Tuesday, August 17^th. Old Belvedere scored 84 for 4 (64 net) with Ewan Mackay turning in very impressive bowling figures of 2 for 2 off 2 overs supported by Daniel O’Brien with 1 for 2 off 2. While we scored 105 runs we lost 7 wickets in the process (70 net). Things were looking a little bleak until Fionn O’Sullivan scored 16 runs in the fourth pairing which proved the inspiration for Eoin Byrne & David McKenna to put on 32 runs in the final pairing with Eoin making 18 & David 14. Perhaps just as important as making all those runs, the three lads didn’t lose a wicket. We finished up narrow victors by 6 runs to book our place in the final.

The winners of the North section, Clontarf B, beat the runner-up in the South section, YMCA B, so we faced Clontarf (in Clontarf) in the Claremont Cup final on Friday, August 20^th. We scored a very impressive 100 runs losing only 3 wickets (net 85 runs). Donal McAuliffe made 13 runs in the penultimate pairing and the final pairing (Eoin & David again) put on 23 runs with Eoin on 19 and David on 4. Clontarf made 88 in reply but really accurate bowling and top-class fielding caused them to lose 7 wickets and they finished on 53 net. Best of our bowlers were Daniel O’Brien (2 for 13 off 4 overs), Fionn O’Sullivan (1 for 6 off 2), Ian Manley (1 for 8 off 2) and Man-of-the-match, Eoin Byrne (1 for 10 off 2).

Our Captain, Milo Egan, was presented with the Claremont Cup and we saw history repeating itself as the current Under 13A’s wicket-keeper, Jack Fitzgerald, collected the same Cup on behalf of Leinster U11B’s at the same venue against the same opposition this time last year. Well done to the B team, many of whom have also seen action for the A team this summer.

Now on to the A team. We set ourselves the target of winning all our remaining fixtures in order to collect the League and Cup double and have won 5 games on the trot (back to the horse again). We crushed an under strength Malahide team at Rathmines on Saturday, August 14^th scoring 101 for 4 (81 net). Malahide in reply made only 77 for 14 (7 net). Three of our bowlers took two wickets each bowling only two overs each (Joe Prendergast 2 for 7; Conor O’Gorman 2 for 11 & Ian Manley 2 for 12). To be fair to Malahide, they had an Under 13 match on the same morning and a number of their best players were poached to play in that game.

We faced Rush the following day, also in Rathmines. This was the game of the season and to quote Sir Alex Ferguson it was squeaky-bum time. We made 108 for 5 (83 net) with the final pairing of Eoin O’Neill and Conor O’Gorman putting on 29 runs. Eoin had a great knock scoring 19 runs off only 8 balls and hitting 4 boundries off the last 4 balls. Stirring stuff. Donal McAuliffe & Eoin Byrne both scored 15 runs off only 16 balls in the case of Eoin and 13 balls in the case of Donal.

In reply, Rush made 107 for 5 (82 net) so we won by the narrowest possible margin – one run. The final Rush pairing put on 36 runs and they needed a 6 from the last ball to win. They ran 4 and total confusion reigned as the bails were off the stumps.  This requires that one of the stumps be removed from the ground and touched by the ball. Very few of the players and spectators present were aware of this esoteric rule of cricket. Not surprising, as it happens so rarely.

The third game in our winning streak came against Phoenix in the Park on Wednesday, August 18^th. Unfortunately, match stats on this game are sketchy as the regular Scorer was in the wee North that day watching Leinster Under 11s play Ulster Under 11s (more of that anon). Phoenix are propping up the League table having lost all of their fixtures but sometimes such teams can play with abandon as they are not under any pressure. The match proved to be a real banana skin and we won by only 8 runs in a wet and windy Phoenix Park. We scored 85 runs but lost 10 wickets (35 net) while Phoenix made 57 runs losing 6 wickets in the process (27 net).

The weather (and our form) improved on the weekend just gone when we played two matches at home to The Hills on Saturday and away to Clontarf yesterday. One of The Hills players took ill on the trip south side which meant that they fielded only 9 players. The Hills scored 86 runs for 4 (56 net as under LCU Regulations a team is penalised 10 runs per player for not fielding a full team). The four wickets went to Conor O’Gorman (2 for 17 off 4); Milo Egan (1 for 5 off 2) and Tom Murray (1 for 17 off 4). In reply, we made 116 for 4 (96 net) with Eoin Byrne (this guy’s on fire) making 18 and the final pairing of the other Eoin and Conor putting on 40 runs off only 24 balls. Eoin O’Neill finished up on 23 from 14 balls.

We knew that Clontarf (who had lost only two matches in their campaign) were going to be tough opposition. After what can only be described as a slow start (the first two pairings putting on only 14 runs and losing 2 wickets in the process) our innings caught fire when the third pairing of Joe Prendergast & Tom Murray put together a partnership of 35 runs. While Tom made the bulk of the runs (29 runs off 16 balls including 6 boundries), Joe provided great support allowing Tom to retain the strike. Milo & Donal contributed a valuable 18 runs (losing only 1 wicket) and the Conor & Eoin show performed again coming up with 24 runs (13 to Eoin & 11 to Conor). It is fair to say that the turning point in the match was Tom’s barnstorming knock and he looked like he could have batted all day long. Our 93 for 3 (78 net) was a reasonable total but by no means beyond reach. Clontarf made a very good stab at it putting on 99 for 6 (69 net) with our best bowlers being Daniel & Eoin (this fellow’s going to get a big head) both on 1 for 8 off 2. In the end we won by 9 runs but the match could have gone either way. While Clontarf scored more runs than us it all came down to us losing only 3 wickets to their 6. How Clontarf must hate the sight of Leinster!

Our final game of the season is against Terenure this Wednesday in Rathmines. However, this is now a dead rubber as Clontarf beat our nearest rivals, YMCA, today so we can’t be caught. For the record we are now on 180 points (P 10 W 9 L 1) while YMCA have completed their campaign on 160 points (P 11 W 8 L 3) and Clontarf with one game remaining are on 140 points (P 10 W 7 L 3). Congratulations to the lads on adding the Molins Cup to our Fingal Cup victory thereby completing a famous League & Cup double. The weather forecast is not great for Wednesday but let’s hope we get to play and put the final finishing touch to our League campaign.

A big thank you again to Mark Kelly and Brian Butler for all the work they have put into coaching both the A & B teams this season. I’m sure the success we have enjoyed winning three trophies at Under 11 level must be a source of great satisfaction to Mark & Brian. Much of the groundwork was laid by Brian last year and the Treble would not have been achieved but for all the hard graft back then. Thank you also for all the work done behind the scenes by Colin Rogan in organising fixtures (well done on negotiating all those home matches, Colin) and for attending so many of our matches throughout the summer.

Finally, I should mention that our two Leinster Province representatives, Tom & Conor, did themselves and the Club proud last week. We played Eryri District (a North Wales selection) home and away (in Anglesea on Monday, August 16^th and in Pembroke CC on Friday, August 20^th) and we won both matches. We suffered a very narrow defeat at the hands of Ulster in Burndennett, Strabane on Wednesday, August 18^th losing by only one wicket. Tom & Conor played in all three matches and performed well with both bat and ball.

Last but one blog for this season, I’m afraid. Will do a season review wrap up blog next week. How will we survive without cricket for the next nine months or so? Hope to see you all, if not on Wednesday, then on the Family Fun day at LCC this Sunday.

Michael O’Gorman

August 23^rd 2010

Congratulations to the girls, Rory and Pat on winning the U13 league.

Eight wins from eight games.

Undoubtedly the Champions of girls U13 cricket.

After the hugely successful U15 UK tour to the 20/20 finals day at the Rose Bowl Hampshire its proposed to go again.

We will probably bring a U13, U14, U 15 team or teams to next years 20/20 Finals day.

Anyone interested, kids, moms dads etc whoever in putting their names down on a prelminary list (no committment) contact Hugh Mullen @ 0863921893.

Sunday 29Th August at 10am. All kids Moms Dads Sisters Brothers Aunties Uncles etc welcome.

Contact your respective coach/manager for details.

Congratulations to the U11b boys, Brian and Mark on winning the league.