Nine Leinster schoolboys are currently residing in South Africa taking advantage of their school Transition year to spend time in local schools and playing and practising daily at a high standard.
Over the past 10 years Cricket Leinster has assisted young cricketers to find appropriate schooling arrangements at various venues around the country. The experience gained is invaluable with most returning as better cricketers and having experienced first-hand the strong South African schools cricket set-up.
Muir College’s traditional first game of the new school year against St Andrew’s from Grahamstown proved a difficult opening fixture with both the 1st X1 and 2nd X1’s losing to, without doubt, the strongest cricket school (along with Grey High school) in the Eastern Cape. North County’s Fionn Hand scored 24 for the 1st X1 and also got the only wicket when losing by 9 wickets in the game held in Grahamstown.
Fixtures in the coming weeks will involve games against other strong Eastern Cape cricket schools like Woodridge, Grey College, Union High, Graham College, Brandwag, Queen's College, Daniel Pienaar and Sterling High School.
Current Ireland World Cup squad members Andrew Balbirnie and George Dockrell along with Ireland ‘A’ player Barry McCarthy have spent time at Muir College recently and it is hoped that the current crop of players spending time there can follow in their footsteps and gain higher honours in the years to come.
Below is a list of the Leinster players currently in South Africa:
Mark Donegan (Gormanston College & The Hills), Fionn Hand (Ardgillan College & North County), Sam Murphy (Wilson’s Hospital & YMCA) & David O’Connor (Terenure College & YMCA) at Muir College, Uitenhage, Eastern Cape.
Dean Brogan (Rush) & Ultan Doherty (The Hills) - CUS school programme - at St Alban’s College, Pretoria.
Harry Opperman (Clontarf), Andrew Fox (Civil Service) & Nicholas King - CUS school programme - at Kearsney College, Durban.