Merrion - Winners of the Premier League 2018
Excepting an important play-off next weekend between Rush and Leinster the league season for most clubs participating in the Mason Alexander / LHW Financial Services Premier. With some matches from the final weekend having less relevance than others it is probably fair to say that an end of term mood was already evident. Certainly this was the case at Anglesea Road where the game had a pre-season friendly feel to it. Despite this there was plenty of entertainment and the large and quite noisy crowd were able to see some excellent batting and plenty of sixes.
Batting first the Merrion top order took advantage of a weakened Clontarf attack with three players making big scores, Dom Joyce [84], John Anderson [82] and Tyrone Kane [78]. Some heavy hitting towards the end of the inning saw Merrion pass the 300 mark and record their highest total of the competition - 311/9. The highlight of the bowling was a hat-trick [over two overs] from Shariful Islam who took 5/54 over all.
A Bill Coghlan century was the highlight of the Clontarf innings. Hitting the ball to all corners of the ground and into the neighbouring gardens he made 119 in his recognisable stand and deliver style. But with limited support coming from the rest of the top order too much was expected and a late order rally wasn’t enough to get close to the Merrion total. For Merrion there were wickets for Richard Bisgood [3/43] on Premier debut and also from Niranjan Shankar [3/56]
Whatever hopes we had for a tense finish to the season evaporated as news filtered through of a batting collapse by Phoenix in The Vineyard. Needing a win to avoid the automatic relegation spot Phoenix were all out for a disappointing 96. The wickets were well spread among the bowlers and only Reinhart Strydom [33] made a contribution with the bat. The Hills duly secured a six wicket victory.
In the other match of relegation interest, North County had the narrowest of wins over Leinster. Batting first North County were in trouble from the start and it took a fighting century from Eddie Richardson [103] to give them any sort of total [191] to work with. But despite a half century from Hugh McDonnell [63] at the top of the innings Leinster were never able to take control of the game. Three top order wickets by Adam Coughlan [3/33] did the damage and despite a valiant fightback by their middle to late order Leinster ended up 3 runs short. In the end the loss was not critical as Phoenix had by this time already lost their game.
In the final match Pembroke had an easy 102 run victory over YMCA. Batting first they made 247/7 thanks to half-centuries from Jack Balbirnie [65] and Lorcan Tucker [51]. Pick of the YMCA bowlers was Jarred Barnes with 3/39. YMCA had a disastrous start and within 15 overs they were six down for 50. The lower order brought some respectability but the final total of 139 was still well short of what was needed. For Pembroke Jack Balbirnie crowned an excellent all round performance by taking four wickets [4/42], with good support from David Murphy [3/38].