Durban Report

Greetings from Durban, South Africa

Patrick Morris, Luke Whelan, Alec Jackson, John Devane and I are here at Glenwood High School as part of the Cricket Leinster player exchange programme.

It’s been two weeks since we touched down at Durban’s King Shaka International Airport. Upon arrival, we were greeted by one of the Glenwood’s teachers, Mr Munro, who would be looking after us for the duration of our trip. After a short drive we arrived at the school.

After we’d unpacked our belongings, we were shown around the boarding house, Gibson House (our residence for the next two months) and we were also given a tour of the school and its grounds. The school’s facilities and cricket pitch are very impressive. It’s safe to say we slept well that night after our sixteen-hour long journey.

The next morning, we were up early participating in a training session, and we got our first experience of the African sun. In the swelteringly hot conditions, all five of us were drained after  two hours of hard work. The heat has taken some getting used to, especially the first week or so which was a very tough.

Two days after arriving we had our first game for the Glenwood senior second XI. We came up against a strong team, Marias Viljoen school from Johannesburg. Even though we lost both the 50 and 20 over fixtures, both games were very enjoyable and the standard of cricket was very high.

In the coming weeks we’ll be beginning training with the Futura Sports Academy who are based at Glenwood High school. We are all looking forward to this as it will help with our development as cricketers. Fixtures in the coming weeks include Clifton College, Westville, St Charles, Northwood, Durban High School and Maritzburg College.

We would like to thank Cricket Leinster and all of our parents for making such an enjoyable trip possible. We would all also like to thank everyone at Glenwood High school for welcoming us so warmly.

Conor Cooney

Castleknock College and Phoenix Cricket Club