RSA Open Competitions: D2
Clontarf v Rush Clontarf have had a great start to the season, winning all their matches and are likely to start every match in the domestic competitions as favourites. Last week they had a comfortable 8 wicket win against Balbriggan. With Joe Morrissey and Zander van der Merve leading the attack and taking three wickets each, Balbriggan struggled to 101. With ‘back-up’ support from Andre Botha, Alex Cusack and Andrew Poynter the Clontarf bowling is likely to put most teams in D2 under similar pressure. Clontarf look much stronger this year than last in all departments.
Rush have perhaps been a little unfortunate to have to paly a double header against a much strengthened Terenure as their first two competitive matches. I doubt they will thank the fates for pitching them up against Clontarf in the third. They were well beaten on the Saturday when a century from E [Shammy] Ahmed resulted in Terenure putting up a total of 280. Rush made over 200 thanks to 87 from Amir Iqbal but were still well short. On the Sunday [RSA Irish Senior Cup] it was a much closer affair with Terenure only scraping home by 2 wickets. Another 200 plus score posted suggests that batting won’t be a weakness for Rush this year but they have still to stop other teams achieving their scores.
The Clontarf team for the weekend is E Delany, B Coghlan, R Forrest, A Cusack, A Poynter, A Botha, Z van der Merve, M Collier, J Morrissey, P Ryan and A Craig. Mark Collier comes into the team this week after an impressive performance for the 2nds.
Merrion II v Malahide Merrion II had a great win against Leinster II last weekend in their debut match in D2. They are likely to find it much more difficult this weekend against Malahide who will be desperately looking for a win after losing out to Trinity for double points and again to Clontarf in the RISC.
Merrion II look to have a reasonable bowling attack [though they will be missing Robbie Ensor this weekend who is unavailable]. Stuart McDonald, younger brother of Ronan who is playing on the 1st XI, took four wickets against Leinster II and will be looking to repeat the performance. But Malahide will be a different proposition with Finton McAllister already in the runs. The bigger question is whether their batting will stand up to the Malahide attack – they may have to rely on Kade Beasley for more runs after his undefeated half century last week
Malahide had a disappointing game against Trinity being shot out for 120 and although they fought back well in the second innings they ultimately lost by five wickets.
The Merrion team for the weekend has three changes with Cillain O’Donoghue [unavailable last weekend] returning and Patrick Tice back from voluntary work over the winter in Africa to take over behind the stumps. The full team is K Beasley, A Parkinson, C O’Donoghue, N Brown, Dam Joyce, P Tice, J Short, S McDonald, H Kennedy, T Wijesundera.
The Malahide team is C Riches, A Reynolds, A Pyne, P Saville, P Chase, K Reynolds, Y Kashyap, F McAllister, C Shoebridge, R Gallagher, J Govan
Trinity v Terenure Dublin University secured a very important ‘double points’ win against Malahide in the first full round of the competition. They had previously lost to Clontarf but only be three wickets in a well contested match. Last week all six bowlers took wickets and it is this all round strength that they will need to challenge Terenure. The batting is likely to be more of an issue and although both Richard Forrest and MA Anwar scored runs last weekend Trinity will need some telling contribution from the top order against Terenure.
Terenure have got off to a flier this season and won twice last weekend. It is still early days but the batting has a stronger roots than last year with a number of players capable of making big scores. The bowling may be where they are vulnerable and if trinity can post a good score than it is all to play for.
The Terenure team for the weekend is from: K McDonald, E Ahmed, T Fisher, T Hashmi, B Hoey, M Hoey, M Hogan, U Jahinger, R Lawrence, T Lynce, J Smith and D van Zyl.
Trinity are selected from: E Conway, H Pike, R Forrest, J Tasman Jones, A Anwar, D Kapoor, T Bouch, V Verwoed, N Delany, C Hoey, R Walsh and R Bridges.
Balbriggan v Leinster II The final match is a very interesting affair between Balbriggan and Leinster II. Both teams lost last weekend and will be anxious to get a victory. Balbriggan never really got out of the blocks against Clontarf [though they won’t be alone in that this season] and Leinster IIs had a poor result against Merrion IIs.
Beyond that it is very difficult to compare the two teams. Balbriggan had a great year in 2012 in both league and cup competitions. But this is a big step up – but they do have players such as Barry Archer who have played at a high standard and the team has been bolstered by bringing in some experienced players.
The teams for the weekend are:
Balbriggan [selected from]: B Archer, G Russell, S Anwar, M Byrne, P Martin, R Kear, Albert Harper, A Shaffique, D Rooney, N Rooney, Adrian Harper, D Harper.
Leinster II: J Nagle, J Byrne, S Cassidy, D Coad, R Geraghty, G Gilmore, R Kenealy, N McDonnell, D Lucas, E Byrne, K O’Herlihy