Youth Cricket in 2013 – End of season

With all competitions now completed it is time to look back on the season. For the first time in a number of years the weather was not a factor. However the number of teams which withdrew during the season and the number of games not played is worrying.

I think the awful weather in 2012 had a serious impact on numbers this year as parents decided that they didn’t get value for money with the numbers of games and training sessions cancelled. Clubs had entered teams for which the expected numbers didn’t turn up and cancelled games in the hope that more kids would arrive later on. They then had to pull teams and ran into difficulties with rescheduling.

It was disappointing to see some of the more prominent clubs fail to complete 20% of their fixtures when YMCA, who won seven and were runners up in seven others along with two All Ireland titles, completed 116 out of 119  games.

It goes to show that if clubs are committed they can overcome difficulties.

There were 477 boys’ and 151 girls’ games in 2013 compared to 484 and 134 in 2012.

There were 123 sides entered in boys’ and 32 in girls’ competitions as against 122 and 31 last year. Of course the original teams entered were around a dozen more.   

In the last ten days of the season -

Terenure beat North County in the U19 Sean McGrath cup final.

YMCA beat Bready in the U13 All Ireland final and completed a clean sweep of All Ireland titles by beating Instonians in the U11 final.

Listed below is the complete list of competitions winners and runners up for 2013.