With only two NCU clubs left standing out of 16 teams there’s no room for optimism that Leinster’s recent dominance of this competition is coming to an end. The Dublin clubs continue to blaze the trail and although there are still seven North-West teams in the draw, it is difficult to see a winner amongst them.
Is the standard of NCU senior cricket so far behind our provincial peers or is the Irish Senior Cup not a good barometer? It would be hard to argue a strong case for NCU equality given our abominable record over the past 15 years. This is certainly not a one-off season and although the top clubs openly claim Irish Cup ambitions, they don’t back them up on the field. Things didn’t look too bad until last weekend with five NCU clubs still in the fray, but after the re-arranged games were settled on another wet weekend, North Down, Lisburn and Civil Service North all fell within 24 hours. North Down and Civil Service North fell foul of low-scoring Bowl-Outs, but the highly-fancied Comber club can have no complaints as they were already on the rack before rain intervened. The ensuing Bowl-Out was perhaps their best chance of a win on the day against the visitors Brigade. Civil Service North lost 1-0 against Bond’s Glen in a bitterly disappointing result for the Stormont team, but if only one player out of 10 can hit the unguarded stumps from less than 20 yards what does that tell us about cricket standards? Certainly a team that fails to hit the stumps at all can have no complaints despite the confines of this crude tie-breaker.
There are many theories as to why we have ended up in this situation, but most of them look like feeble excuses rather than viable arguments. On paper at least the NCU clubs would feel they are currently stronger than their North-West neighbours, even if there is a recognition that the Leinster clubs are heavily armed with overseas cricket missionaries and most of the top locally-based Cricket Ireland players.
With the benefit of that great gift “hindsight” we can easily trace where it all went wrong, even if the revival seems as far away as ever. The last NCU winner was North Down in 1995, a season followed by five successive wins from North-West teams. However, since 2000 the only Northern winner has been Limavady in 2004. Are Leinster clubs really that good?
The late Nineties was a period when several of the top NCU teams were in recession, but over the past decade the top two clubs North Down and Waringstown have been masters in their own house without making any impact on the Irish Senior Cup. This is difficult to explain for two squads that are rich in talent.
The 2011 Irish Senior Cup is a landmark because it is the 30th competition and if a Leinster club wins then they will match the NCU record of 11 wins. Waringstown and Instonians stand in their way, but the Old Boys will do well to topple three-times winners Limavady on their home patch, and The Villagers have it all to do against five-times winners North County at The Lawn. Once again the rest of the NCU clubs should set aside their parochial differences and rally around their remaining representatives to keep the NCU flag flying. The local teams face formidable odds, but taking each match at a time they have the ability to go all the way. Recent history is against them, but both clubs have the talent to beat any team on their day so in the interests of NCU pride let’s give them our total backing.
We have to get this monkey off our back and restore NCU pride.
Clarence Hiles
Editor
