With the youth season drawing to a close, a look at the cup winners at U11, 13 & 15 boys and girls shows that the spoils have been well spread throughout Leinster.
In the girls competitions the U11 cup was contested by Clontarf and Rush with Rush coming out convincing winners by 62 runs. At U13 the final was between YMCA and The Hills. The Hills won by 8 wickets but did not seal victory until the dying minutes of the game, Rhiannon Pope’s experience seeing The Hills home. At U15 Merrion came out winners against Rush who put up a strong fight to reach the target of 123 set by Merrion, but ended their innings 30 runs short.
In the boys’ cup competitions, at U11 YMCA, unbeaten in the league, beat off the strong challenge of Merrion to win by 5 wickets. At U13 Clontarf, also unbeaten in their league, came out comfortable winners by 30 runs against Pembroke. At U15 an unfancied Terenure team claimed the top prize with a recent arrival to the sport, Donal Lynch, scoring 113 (ten 4s & five 6s) to help his team to a 26 run win over North County.
For the boys the Leinster cup leads to an All Ireland competition between the NCU, NWCU and LCU cup winners, and at U11 YMCA, who got a bye to the final, will take on CSNI on Mon 29th August @ 2.30pm in Claremont Rd. At U13 Clontarf have overcome CSNI in their semi final and will travel to play the winners of a yet undecided NWCU cup final between Bready and Coleraine. At U15 Terenure travel to Donemana on Mon 22nd for their semi final, the winner of that encounter playing Saintfield in the final.
Brian O’Sullivan must be thanked for the trojan work he undertakes in overseeing all the Leinster cup competitions and co-ordinating the All Ireland finals for the three unions.