End of Season : Open Competitions

Merrion’s performance on the cricket pitch over the past few years is most often characterised as seasons of mixed fortune. Encouraging individual performances, a few trophies won and several near misses. The same could be said of the season past. But this would be a mistake. Taking a longer term view it is clear that the club’s overall standing across Cricket Leinster’s Open Competitions has been in steady decline for several years. The description of mixed fortunes might have greater validity if one included the clean sweep of trophies by the Womens’ 1^st XI and the two youth all Ireland titles won.  But for the moment let us focus on the Open Competitions.

Although the 1^st XI made relatively early exits from the Irish and Leinster Senior Cups and just failed to qualify for the Alan Murray T20 play-offs, the team maintained their challenge for the Premier League to the end. An impressive series of wins in the middle part of the season put them in poll position coming into the last game only to have their winning run come to an end in the final weekend. With all the results in a mere 2.5 points separated Merrion from  Pembroke who won the title for the third year in a row. A sufficiently close margin to  keep the Merrion bar in profit as members discussed the many ‘what ifs’ into the night.

While Merrion managed the highest number of outright victories in the league,  the failure to get over the winning line can most clearly be attributed to the fall off in the number of bonus points obtained in the final games of the season. At the cutoff-point, when the league divided between top six and bottom six teams, Merrion had 37 bonus points. In the remaining five games the team only managed to add four more points. In the first half of season the team managed 2.85 bonus points per match, after the break less than 1. Winning close games is a critical part of any successful campaign, but closing off winning positions and maximising bonus points is also important.

But disappointing as it was for players and supporters to be runners up again, for the third time in five years, it was a commendable performance by the team that exceeded the pre-season expectations of most of the regular pundits.

The 2^nd XI won the only trophy of the year in Open Competitions, the Leinster Senior II Cup. Titles have been difficult to come by in recent years as the number of clubs and teams in Leinster has expanded. Another reason for this relative drought in trophies won was that individual Merrion teams tended to play in higher ranked competitions than other clubs. But this is no longer the case and thus makes the lack of competitiveness down the sides a concern. And it could have been worse. A final round win for the 2^nd XI brought them from 7^th position to third in a highly compacted league table. Wins for the 4^th and 5^th XI in their final games raised spirits but could not hide what was a very disappointing season all round.

Winning isn’t everything. But being competitive in whatever league you are in is important both for the enjoyment of those playing and the development of younger cricketers. And an occasional cup run also helps.