The apparent resurgence of NCU cricket (at the very top level anyway) continues, with Waringstown moving two places up our rankings to second, and completing a 1-2 for the NCU, with Instonians in top place.
The two teams are first and second in the NCU Premier league, with Instonians today competing in the Challenge Cup final, and Waringstown through to he Irish Senior Cup semi final on August 16th. The last time two NCU sides finished as the top two teams in these rankings was back in 2012, when Waringstown, North Down and Instonians were the top 3, with Brigade in 4 - Leinster were the top LCU club in 5th.
It has been a little bit of a stop start season for the top Leinster clubs. The reason for Waringstown's promotion was YMCA's loss to Malahide in the last round of Leinster Division 1 matches, along with Clontarf's loss to North County.
It's not an especially good chart for the North West, as Brigade and Donemana have dropped further down, to 12th and 13th respectively. Eglinton have had a good time of things in the North West though. As we speak, they have Donemana 80-4 in the North West Senior Cup final, and sit in 5th place in the league. According to our historical rankings, the best Eglinton team since 2001 was the 2010 team which finished 9th of 10 in the top league - this season's vintage should trump that.
WIth August moving into view, it maybe worth looking at how the respective Leinster divisions will end up. There is nothing between YMCA, Clontarf and Merrion, so the title race will go all the way - with YMCA just edging it. At the bottom of Division 1, the ranings currently have Railway Union and Cork County filling the bottom two positions.
In Division 2, the rankings match reality, having The Hills way ahead of the other teams. The second spot looks tight (according to the rankings anyway), with Leinster and Phoenix neck and neck, with Terenure just a bit further back.
Back to this weekend's action, and our rankings predictions for the action in Leinster (in bold)
Leinster Senior Cup final
Clontarf (4) vs YMCA (3)
Division 1
Railway Union (18) vs Clontarf (4)
Pembroke (11) vs Merrion (5)
Malahide (15) vs North County (10)
YMCA (3) vs Cork County (21)
Division 2
Balbriggan (38) vs Leinster (27)
The Hills (7) vs Terenure (33)
Phoenix (29) vs Rush (35)