Another very productive year within Leinster saw further increases in participation and overall playing numbers. Added to this, the year saw the starting of several new clubs participating in the Leinster leagues. Further investment within the Leinster programme by local authorities (Fingal County Council, South Dublin County Council, Dublin City Council and, more recently, Dun Laoghaire Rathdown) has seen more coaches employed, resulting in the game at Primary schools’ level in particular being as strong as ever. More recently, funding has been secured from Wexford County Council that will see the delivery of school cricket programmes in the Wexford, New Ross & Gorey areas.
Primary Schools:
Added to the Cricket Leinster youth programme this year was the Leprechaun Cup ‘Cailíní’ which is a Primary schools’ competition for girls’ schools. Four schools played weekly games in the Fingal area.
Also added into the 2015 programme is the new Leprechaun ‘4th Class Cup’ involving four of the stronger cricket-playing Primary schools.
Running parallel to these competitions is the higher standard Leprechaun Cup ‘Super league’ which had eight schools participating.
The Leprechaun Cup remains the ‘flagship’ of the Cricket Leinster development programme with over 40 schools now participating. A memorable day at Malahide last June saw local school Oliver Plunkett’s (pictured) beat St Mathew’s from Irishtown in another highly successful final.
All the Primary school competitions in Leinster have again been sponsored by Antalis Ltd.
Secondary Schools:
A lot of school coaching visits were carried out by Leinster coaches throughout 2015 to assist teaching/PE staff to get the game started within their schools. St Declan’s Cabra, Presentation College Bray and Ard Scoil Rís Marino played their first ever hardball matches and as a result have committed to entering teams into the schools leagues in 2016. Schools also entering for the first time in 2015 were CBC Monkstown and Temple Carrig school from Greystones.
Introduction of U12 District Competition:
2015 saw the introduction of a new regional district competition for the U12 boys age-group. The district teams representing Dublin City Council (pictured), Dun Laoghaire Rathdown, South Dublin County Council and Fingal County Council played a series of fixtures catering for those boys who are rated just underneath provincial squad standard.
Clubs:
Following a lot of work, Clondalkin CC obtained use of a new ground at Tymon Park. A new pitch was laid and many friendly games were played during 2015. They have been formally entered into the 2016 Leinster leagues.
AIB Cricket Club entered league cricket in 2015 in Division 16, after a long history of playing Taverners cricket, and several seasons playing cup cricket in Leinster. Home games in 2015 were played across several clubs in South Dublin - St Columba's College, Three Rock Rovers and Railway Union.
County Meath saw its latest club join Cricket Leinster's league competitions in 2015, as Ashbourne CC joined the fray. The club played its cricket in Division 16, with high expectations of a successful season. The club plays out of Ashbourne Community Centre, where a new pitch was laid in 2014.
Carlow Cricket Club played their first year of competitive cricket in 2015, entering both Division 6 and the Minor 2 Cup. The club has been using the excellent facilities of Carlow RFC in Oak Park, Carlow.
Regional Development Squads:
2015 saw the delivery of over 250 hours of coaching to all the Leinster boys and girl’s squads. Added to this, Cricket Leinster have further established coaching clinics held at both King’s Hospital school and St Columba’s College on Friday evenings that are open to all interested club cricketers.
Provincial sessions now take place every Friday night from October-April, Sunday mornings and also during all school holiday periods.
An age-breakdown of numbers attending Leinster sessions are as follows:
Leinster Underage Provincial Squads (Regional Development Squads) – 2015/2016 | |||
Cricket Leinster Boys | Cricket Leinster Girls | ||
Under 11's | 54 | Under 11's | 27 |
Under 12's | 28 | Under 13's | 45 |
Under 13's | 52 | Under 15's | 49 |
Under 14's | 22 | Under 17's | 12 |
Under 15's | 47 | ||
Under 17's | 41 | ||
Total | 244 | Total | 133 |
Grand Total | 377 |
Leinster also launched their own ‘School of Excellence’ coaching programme held at Phoenix CC over three days in July for boys in the U11 & U12 age-groups.
August saw the introduction of a three-day coaching camp for girls at Civil Service CC supported by both Women in Sport and Dublin City Council.
2015 was a very successful year for the Leinster youth squads. The Union won the inter-provincial series at the following age-groups – U11, U13 (pictured), U15 & U17 levels.
The appointment of a new sponsor (Veolia) has assisted greatly in the running of the Leinster youth programme (squad work) particularly during the summer months.
Leinster Youth Tours:
These tours remain a big part of the Leinster development programme. A third tour by the girls under-age squads was introduced in 2015.
Leinster players on Ireland squads:
Leinster continue to be very well represented on Ireland under-age squads. A breakdown from activities/tournaments during 2015 are as follows:
Ireland U17 girls – 11.
Ireland U19 boys – 9. (ICC World Cup - Bangladesh 2016)
Ireland U17 boys – 9.
Ireland U15 boys – 10.
Ireland U13 boys (training camp) – 9.
Women’s/Girl’s Cricket (WIS):
Following obtaining some new funding under the Women in Sport (WIS) programme, many events were rolled out during 2015 and are continuing into 2016 to increase girl’s participation levels. These events included school coaching visits, provincial training sessions, Saturday morning ‘group’ coaching sessions and the running of several Easter & summer training camps. Three tours to the UK (Malvern x2, North Wales x 1) took place in 2015 for the provinces under-age girls
Disability Cricket:
Amy Kenealy, in her role as South Dublin community development officer, continues to make progress in this area by offering Table Cricket training to groups like Spinabifida Ireland and The Wheelchair Association of Ireland. More people are being up-skilled in relation to delivering sessions and the first inter-institution fixtures took place during the year. Further table cricket sets have been bought following financial support from several of the local authorities.
Midland club visits:
Leinster coaches visited Wexford CC and Dundalk CC during 2015 following successful day-long visits to Bagenalstown and Knockharley the previous year. Time was spent with the clubs’ coaches and sessions were delivered to a variety of the clubs’ youth sides. Next year’s visit will take place in July to Ashbourne CC and Carlow CC.
Links with South Africa:
More transition year students are taking advantage of the South African school programme, that to date has seen 32 Leinster cricketers spend time at Muir College, Uitenhage over the past ten years. Four Leinster boys (Fionn Hand, David O’Connor, Mark Donegan (pictured), Sam Murphy) travelled to Muir College in January for an eight-week period. Further links have been established with other South African schools – Menlo Park - Pretoria, St Stithians - Johannesburg with boys (age 15/16) now visiting in return and being placed with Leinster clubs for the summer months.
Links with England:
An exciting link has been developed with Queen’s College in Taunton. In 2015 Rush CC and Leinster U17 player Stephen Doheny spent six weeks at the school playing for their 1st X1, training with Somerset 2nd X1 at Taunton and also playing cricket locally with Bishops Lydeard CC.
Umpiring & Scoring:
An Umpires Level 1 course (pictured) was held at Leinster CC over a weekend in January with fourteen candidates taking the course of whom eleven passed the terminal exam. Of these eleven, nine have indicated that they intend to umpire with LCU&SA during 2015 and a number have already done so. An introductory scorer’s course was held in March by Siobhan McBennett at Railway Union CC. 21 candidates from ten different Leinster clubs attended and learned the elements of scoring.
Coaches:
Many courses were held in Leinster throughout 2015 providing newly qualified/up-skilled coaches to work in clubs and schools around the province. Courses are being run individually to clubs now such is the demand. Introduction courses were run specifically to sports officers in many of the local authorities (Dublin City/South Dublin & Fingal) thus leading to greater sustainability for the game around the province. Workshops were also delivered to Leinster secondary school teachers in April. The development staff have recently introduced the concept of Primary school teacher ‘workshops’ which entail providing a cricket module as part of their school, in-service training days.
Numbers attending courses in Leinster (2015):
UKCC/ECB Level 2 ‘Young peoples & Adults’ course - 18
‘Welcome to coaching’ course - 49
‘Safeguarding Children’ course - 60
First Aid course - 30
‘Power Hitting’ workshop - 56
Coaching conference (DCU) - 50
Groundsman course:
Last Spring the Leinster Cricket Groundsman Association ran a Spring Ground’s course at Phoenix CC. The course was conducted by Len Smith from the Institute of Groundsmanship who also visited as many grounds as possible during his time in Leinster. This was the first groundsman’s course in a few years but with new clubs on the increase it proved timely as 20 groundsmen attended from both new and established grounds.
Club Accreditation:
The Club Accreditation Process continues to be ongoing within Cricket Leinster.
To date fifteen clubs have achieved the Club Grade Mark:
Clontarf, Rush, The Hills, YMCA, Laois, Leinster, Malahide, Merrion, Mullingar, North County, North Kildare, Pembroke, Phoenix, Terenure & Wexford Wanderers.
There are four further clubs that have reached the stage under the process where they are under active consideration by the CL Accreditation Committee for recommending the grant of the Mark.
The intention is during the current year to widen the engagement under the Accreditation Process to the mainly newer clubs that have yet to be affiliated to CL at General Meeting.
Brían O’Rourke
Cricket Development Manager
April 2016