Looking at the line-up of teams in Division 1 at the start of the season there was good reason for thinking that it was a very open competition. While the existing champions Clontarf were installed as favourites [someone has to inhabit that spot], there were a number of pretenders to the throne. Both Phoenix and The Hills [the two promoted clubs] looked stronger than most clubs moving up in recent years. And so it proved. As we go into the fourth round of the league Pembroke are on top but there are no less than five teams within five points of each other. Even the sixth and seventh teams [Merrion and YMCA] are within a full point win of the top of the table. Railway are the only team without a victory but even here wins in the next two rounds could give them enough points to overtake the current leaders.
That said Railway probably have the most difficult fixture of the weekend against a Clontarf side the will be anxious to bounce back from their surprise loss to Pembroke last weekend. Clontarf have a pretty settled side at this point with only 14 players called upon to take part on all Leinster competitions for the 1st XI. Skipper Eoghan Delany is having a good season with the bat and figures prominently in the Leinster Batting averages, but he is well supported by Bill Coughlan, Robert Fortrest and Charles Wakim all of whom have scored over 100 runs. On the bowling front Alex Cusack and Sameer Dutt are leading the way but all the main bowlers are taking wickets and most have an economy rate of below 4 per over.
Railway on the other hand continue to rely heavily in the batting on Kenny Carroll who has scored more than twice the number of runs as the next player on the team. It has been pretty lean times for the bowlers as well with only one, Saad Ullah taking four wickets. Railway have home advantage but this is probably not the game they would have chosen to try to get their first league win of the year.
The local derby between The Hills and North County is always something to be savoured. This year there is not much to choose between the form of the teams with both having secured two league wins. In the LSC have had contrasting fortunes with North County comfortable winners over Malahide while The Hills came off worse against Leinster in a match determined by DL. The teams haven’t met this year and over the last five years the head - to - heads are 7/6 in favour of The Hills. Both teams have names at the top of the Leinster batting averages - Freddie Kookier [TH] and Eddie Richardson [NC] - but there are players on both sides capable of turning the match with bat or ball.
YMCA got their first league win of the current campaign last weekend against Merrion. Although their top order batting has been instrumental in securing wins this season [they are still in both the ISC and the LSC] it was the strength of their slow bowling that made the difference against Merrion. It will be interesting to see how this fares against what is probably the strongest [and certainly the most dangerous] opening pair in Leinster cricket at the moment - Reinhardt Strydum and Nicolaas Pretorius. The match could easily turn on who comes off best after the first 15 overs of the Phoenix innings.
The last game sees Pembroke take on Merrion at Sydney Parade. Newly installed at the top of the leader board, Pembroke have a well balanced, youthful side that is always competitive. This season they have got an added edge through their overseas player Daniel Solway who is one of two players to have scored over 300 senior runs. The second player who has scored over 300 runs [and much more besides in other competitions] is of course John Anderson. In great form he is unlucky not to be in the squad for the Sri Lankan series [something that perhaps says more about the ranking of those who ply they trade in county cricket as opposed to the inter-provincial competitions]. For spectators there promises to be a feast of runs - and it may come down to which team can nick out a crucial wicket or manage to contain the scoring rate for the longest portion of the game.
In Division 2 Rush are away to North Kildare and will be looking to put another team to the sword with their batting. Neither Cork County and Malahide, the two teams that were demoted from D1 at the end of 2015, have had a comfortable start to the season. This is the opportunity for one of them at least to put that start behind them and Cork will be the happier that they have home advantage in what may prove a crucial game for both teams. Balbriggan are in good form and take on a Terenure team that just seems to have lost the knack of winning. And the match of the round, and perhaps the key match in the whole of the first half of the year in D2, is the encounter between Trinity and Leinster at College Park. Leinster have not played all that many games this year but once on the field they have won all their domestic contests. But this may prove their sternest test so far against a Trinity side that has three players in the top six of the bowling averages.