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Tomorrow Muckanore host Carrickfergus in the A J Gallagher NCU Senior Cup quarter final and it's going to be a real carnival atmosphere . We are promoting Ladies Day at the Cricket with prizes for best dressed lady and best dressed couple , a marquee for 250 people with hot buffet , strawberries and cream and a glass of champagne for £10 a head . We also have about a dozen VIP tickets available for our 3 course lunch and champagne on arrival at £20 each. Meal deserved at 3.30pm. The match starts at 12 noon and at the interval we wil have a "nearest the stump " competition and a raffle . There will be entertainment and Carrick's Ally McCammond will be helping spectators from the PA system. The weather is forecast to be sunny and warm so why not come along to Moylena for a great day out as we aim to "make cricket mainstream "

The exhilerating live draw really went to great lengths to breathe life into the Irish Senior and National Cup...I jest! It is my belief that both of these competitions need to be given more of a chance to thrive by changing every round of fixtures through the competitions to Saturdays. This will ensure that games have more chance of being fulfilled which has been a problem to say the least, moreso in the latter competition. The Saturday fixture would give the competitions prime position in the weekend fixture list with Sunday being filled with a league fixture or allowing a break after some exhaustive travel. It seems difficult to ask sides to play on a Saturday, travel in the early hours to a destination possibly 4 or more hours away, travel back that night with work commitments the next day and the change of day may also bring forward a sponsor which proves the current dwidling interest. This is not a sure proof way of making these competitions more successful but may bring them into the forefront of clubs agendas otherwise their existence ought to be reconsidered.

1st time posting on here. Should the ICU help pay for clubs travelling for Irish cup/national cup fixtures? Either by petrol money, overnight accommodation, mini bus, dare I say it even flights!!!

Graham Bryans:
24.1(a) is pretty simple.
The umpire at the bowler's end must first up ask the bowler what his mode of delivery will be. Then the umpire tells the batsmen what the mode (left or right hand, over or around the wicket)will be.
If the bowler then changes his mode of delivery without first informing the umpire/s of the change, then that will/should be called a noball.

Ryan McBeth reportedly 'No-balled for not telling the umpire his mode of delivery'!!
No limit how far an umpire will go to prove he really does know the laws it seems.

I would like to remain anonymous but would like to back up Mark Shields in the Ulster Schools debate. My son is clearly not good enough for US selection - 100% fact.
As a parent, sometimes you have to accept that your child is not good enough for selection - sometime regardless of their surname! The schools selection committee simply trial the boys proposed by their schools and select a team from this. Perhaps there is some loyalty deep down, but I believe that the group simply pick the strongest team based on what they see.
So the Co Armagh stalwart needs to wise up and accept the team - or perhaps get involved in schools cricket, rather than sling mud anonymously on this forum.

Andy Kennedy correctly points out that the readership of this forum exceeds those who contribute. I have considered this forum a mechanism to allow concerns to be aired and debated for those who would not otherwise have a voice.
Posts from 'Co. Armagh Stalwart' and 'disgruntled' might have had the ability to stimulate a debate on this forum in relation to whether individual performance in trials (good or bad) influences the team ultimately selected. If trial performance is not relevant to selection then this needs to be indicated upfront; the logical debate that might follow is if this approach contributes to ensuring the strongest team is selected or if having a narrow focus results in non-inclusion of promising players.
We must encourage future participants when posting to loose the anger or there will be no debate. Respondents need to recognise that debate is actually healthy and could stimulate ideas with the ability to improve systems, even those that are working well. Wishing all of our young players selected success.

Hello Co. Armagh Stalwart

Another critical anonymous post....

A group of 7 teachers (representing 7 different schools and 6 different clubs) and a chairman without affiliation to any school or club picked the schools trials teams from proposals made by schools (not all good players were proposed by their school).

Don't often disagree with '100% fact' but the team to play the MCC has 9 different schools represented (only two players come from schools represented on the committee that pick the team)...doesn't seem that much evidence of picking one's own to me !

Also, the Ulster Schools picks pupils from Form 5 upwards to ensure that as many players as possible are given the opportunity to play. Jack Carson is only Form 4 and so was not proposed by his school (Banbridge I think), though I strongly suspect he will be in the frame next year.

Hope this clears things up....

The posting by Richard succinctly highlights the wide disparity between the 'haves' and the 'have nots' - the gulf between the high spending clubs and those struggling to keep going week after week. I recall Victoria having problems a couple of seasons ago with their landlords, the Council and while that may have been resolved, there are many issues that I and my fellow umpires pick up on when travelling around the country. I wonder if any of these sort of matters are discussed at CI level or is there just a bit of hand wringing and 'let's move on'. The points that Richard has raised is, I believe, a much truer reflection of what is happening in grass roots cricket than some would have us believe and I commend him for his input

Thank you Bumper for your kind words re Millpark CC. 6 defeats out of 6 is certainly testimony to our generous hospitality to opposing teams! Look forward to seeing you again later in the summer. We may have even won a game by then!But I wouldn't put any money on it!

Can I just say that trials for selection for Ulster Schools should now be disregarded ! No matter how you perform it really doesn't matter ! In fact in all honesty schools cricket should now be totally and utterly treated as a non-entity ! Coaches involved pick their pupils or kids involved with their clubs ! No matter what anyone says that is 100 per cent fact ! Can I also ask how one of the NCU's brightest talents - Jack Carson was not even involved ! Good enough for Sussex developing u17 but not NCU ?

Time for the coaches involved to wake up and appreciate the talent you have in front of you and put to one side club/school loyalties !!!!
.

Following recent excurison in google I assume no one had a paper copy of Tom Smith? Pl O'Hara keen to flog them at beginning of each season as I can recall.

Great that teams making a great effort to rearrange fixtures and as the humble Secretary of Section 9 I am greatly encouraged see so much effort to get games played especially around the dreaded exam time. Also great to see new teams and that is a progression against the sad demise of Drumaness which was a difficult ground to score at but some great games at it when with Laurelvale and Cooke Collegians and I would hope that one day we could bring the game back to the the boys who really enjoyed their cricket.

Any1 looking tickets for Ireland vs Sri Lanka next week?

I have been reading, with considerable empathy, many of the comments about clubs recently made on this forum, in some of which Ards CC (where I am Coach and Development Officer) has been mentioned. I can only speak to the problems that Ards has had, but perhaps others will find a resonance with their club. Small clubs like Ards have traditionally struggled in the shadow of larger and more established clubs in the past, but noticeably several of these are now struggling to put out teams below the 1st XI, and so we are not alone in our area in facing player problems. It is difficult to generalise about the reasons behind this, because there are several clubs who are ‘bucking the trend’ as one post had it, but I will hazard a few that I know affect us badly.

1. Work patterns - these have changed in the last couple of decades since I last played in the NCU (1977-1989). With the advent of zero hours contracts many of our younger players (later teenagers and students in their 20s) find themselves working shifts in service industries on Saturdays and Sundays and cannot commit themselves to playing a full weekend match, no matter if 40 or 50 overs. If they take time off for matches, or turn down shifts, they often find they don’t get the hours at work in future. The same problem exists for them making club training nights. Many young players, who are the very lifeblood of many clubs, are being squeezed out of the game. Catch 22 for many sides.

2. Demands on young players - I know there have been plenty of comments about school cricket, supportive and otherwise, on this forum so I won’t rehash them again. The pressures of school examinations are well known, and many young players opt for school cricket only instead of club, leaving clubs like ours short until the holiday period, then they go off on holiday, and many only play a month or so of the season for club. We have even found, this season, many U13 and U15 players opting out of training and matches because of parental pressure on performance in internal school exams. Add to this the extension of football, and other ‘winter’ sports seasons, to the end of May, and this is why small clubs like Ards struggle for teams. When I played for Ards in the 1970s and 1980s these pressures did not exist, to the same extent, for younger players; we grew from two senior teams to four on a Saturday, and had a full range of junior teams.

3. Club profile - we are a strange club (I can see the nods from others right now) in that we have a lot of players in their teens and early 20s, late 30s and 40s, but very little in between. The guys in their 20s and 30s, who used to play, have had children or changed work pattern, and are no long playing or contributing through coaching and administrating. Thus Ards’ senior teams are generally very young and having to grow up fast, a situation that has definitely hit our results in the last two years, and our ability to put out decent sides. We are thus over-reliant on teenagers for our sides, and though we have nurtured some talent in recent times, retaining more experienced players is even more vital. We continue to try to recruit, and indeed have attracted several adult players this season, but more are needed.

4. Outside Obstacles – Ards CC is very grateful for the improved facilities at Londonderry Park, not least the vastly improved practice facilities, and the new square which is producing good fast pitches and favourable comments from umpires and opposition players alike. Few other clubs have the opportunities that Ards have been given. But Ards does not own its own ground, unlike many other clubs, and we are at the mercy of the vagaries of council policy. Three examples will suffice: given 6 weeks warning about a public march to commemorate the Somme this coming Saturday, and informed our ground was to be used, we postponed the 2nd XI fixture, only to find out two days ago that the march was re-routed to another part of the park. The opposition do not play on Sundays, it is a difficult distance to travel for a 2 night match, and we have no free Saturdays within the 6 week window. Second, as people may have seen on our twitter feed, the Council dumped tons of sand on the two football pitches either side of our square this week and left ruts running across the outfield. Not only is this unsafe for fielding on, as well as disastrous for the ball and potentially injurious for players, but it has made the ground a dustbowl. I can imagine the outcry if this ‘renovation’ had happened during the football season, and the pitches were unplayable but, Ards being a small club and unlikely to make a huge noise, it has been done half way through the cricket season with no regard to the effect this will have on our ability to fulfil fixtures or the standard of play. We have already had to re-arrange junior fixtures and may have to concede others if the outfield is not sorted out satisfactorily. Finally, despite having a large park at its disposal, the big screen compound for NI’s Euro 2016 match against Ukraine is being erected half way across the outfield, endangering further junior matches on our ground next week. Spending millions on a redevelopment of Londonderry Park and one of the sports which plays there, cannot play on their ground, on account of other activities in quick succession? You couldn’t make it up.

I am sure that many out there will recognise some of the problems in their own clubs, and maybe have others to share but clubs like Ards, who are reliant on a hard core of committed members who do most things, are ultimately essential to the health of the NCU. We have aspirations the same as most clubs, we work hard to develop our own cricketers, and we have problems like everyone else (we also try to find our own solutions). But when there is a lack of understanding of the specific issues each club faces, or little outside help to enable clubs like Ards and others in Sections 2 & 3 to flourish in the face of local authorities who are obsessed with football, then there will be more walkovers, more concessions of fixtures and perhaps more clubs folding in the imminent future. We have not ditched our 2nd XI this season only because we want to give opportunities for school age players to play senior cricket, and to occupy the players we have recruited, but this decision may yet be reversed. We are aware that history shows that if a club goes down to one senior XI then the club may not survive much longer. We are determined to survive but we cannot do it on our own.

Yes indeed Taito, though perhaps if Graham's original post had highlighted that particular fact, I would'nt have felt the need to come on and spout rule 34 ?

Umpires don't have the benefit of 'Google' at hand when required to make an instantaneous decision !

And glad to hear the matter has been amicably resolved to the satisfaction of all concerned !