Another busy day of fixtures across the province [and wider afield]. Ireland’s U15 boys and girls start their UK tours today with matches abasing Scotland [Boys] and Lancashire [Girls]. Back on home shores there are 17 scheduled OC matches and a few morning youth games.
The main focus today will be on the Russell Court D1 and D2 leagues [Round 10]. We are fortunately still at the stage where every match has relevance to either the title, promotion or relegation races / struggles. Perhaps the most general interest will be in Railway Union v Malahide game - with a lot of D1 sides anxious to see if Malahide can put together a run of results to take them above Dublin University into the promotion play off spot. In other matches Merrion could secure the RCD2 title today and Clontarf with a win v Cork would be in a commanding position, even after their loss to Leinster on Saturday.
What else is particularly noteworthy. In D5 Longford have moved off the top spot following their loss yesterday. Another game today gives them the opportunity to end their mid-season wobble and prevent it becoming a slide.
In D7 North Kildare are in second place [but a distance behind Bagenalstown]. Bagenalstown received a walk-over yesterday [subject to confirmation by OCC] so pressure is on NK to win today to keep in touch.
Clontarf IV have a tough assignment away to Adamstown [3rd] in D8 and would certainly welcome the win to maintain their lead over second placed Carlow. Mind you Carlow’s challenge for the title won’t have been helped by losing to Wicklow [by ten wickets] yesterday.
Merrion VI may still be top of D11 [just] but a second defeat - after their dramatic one wicket loss to North Kildare yesterday - over the weekend will do their title chances no favours. They play The Hills IV while Ashbourne [2nd] take on Clontarf V [4th] today.
Finally, thanks to everyone who has been sending in results to the Match Centre and to the Cricket Leinster mobile [087-2780309]. If your result is not up you can text it to the above number. At this time of the season with lots of people interested in how the leagues are going it is a great help in getting information up quickly on the website. Result cards still have to be sent in by the due date but it would be nice if we had all the summary results up by the end of the day or at least on the following day for the rest of the season.
The best way to do this is to check out the Results and if your match isn’t up then send a text message to the above number with the details - league division / name of two teams / final scores / result. Thanks.