It was chucking it down when I went to bed and still raining when I woke up first on Saturday morning, but by the time I got up at ten the sky was bright. The Anglesea Road ground dried out enough for Merrion to ask Limavady to bat first at one o'clock, with no reduction in overs.

There weren't any black stumps available, but neither were there any white pads on view. The pitch, although lively, was perfectly playable.

Decker Curry chased Matt Petrie's first ball, a widish loosener, into Rory Allright's gloves. Agha Sabir poked about very leaden-footedly for 3, before nicking off to Richard Keaveney. The visitors 15/2, and the home team's only problem was when Dom Joyce went apex over base in the infield.

A sack of sawdust was brought out, the Merrion boys topped up their heads, and everything was ticketyboo. Ian McGregor batted well with Andrew Riddles against decent bowling before Aggie lost his off stump to one from Petrie that went the other way.

Dean Curry patted a return catch to Jeff Short, and Ian McGregor was given out lbw a long way down the track to Tiktish Patel's slow left-armers. That was 49/5 and was half way to game over. The scoreboard refused to show 5 wickets down, and some thought it had a point.

But Limavady's 6, 7, 8 is a Cooke and two McDaids, about the best lower middle order in Irish cricket. David Cooke (10) lost concentration after drinks, and slogged Patel to deepish mid off. Both McDaids were then dropped, a low one (Morrissey was asleep at point) and a dolly to Dom Joyce at mid on.

What should have been 80/8 and definitely game over was allowed to become 133/6 as Ricky and Mark were their usual positive selves. The Limavady barmy army were shouting out 'Come on, the Williams sisters!' Be fair, the boys are biggish and uglyish, but not that ugly and certainly not that big.

Mark was well taken in the deep by Patel for 33, and Ricky caught and bowled by David Drane for 44. If 6, 7, 8 are good, the downside is that 9, 10, Jack weren't good enough to manage Matt Petrie‘s third spell.

Simon Dunn was the last to go, a victim of Draino's sucker ball, a loopy full toss that landed on the bails. Umpire Gordon Black involuntarily stuck out a right arm, but said nothing until he called ‘Time' for innings up, 152 all out off 44.2 overs. Dunn and his skipper thought it should have been 153/9 off 44.1.

Matt Petrie's figures were an excellent 9-5-8-3. Keaveney took 1/22 off 7 overs, Jeff Short a tidy 1/40 off 10, Patel, 2/35 off 10 and Drane 3/43 off 8.2.

I missed tea (Danny Parkinson's ample rear quarters blocked my passage) and instead watched the light rain. The D/L par score sheets had been printed out when the umpires decided to dock two overs, so another rain forest was consumed for the par score sheets for a target of 150 off 48.

Chris Moore and Ricky McDaid tore into the Merrion openers. Alec Morison padded up to a straight one from McDaid, 3/1 in the 4th over, and another break for rain. More D/L bumf was produced for a target of 139 off 41 overs.

Dom Joyce was soon bowled by McDaid (another duck), and Matt Petrie played one nice shot before being Riddled (sorry, I couldn't resist it). Most of the 34 runs had come from Richie Barker (aka Ronnie), but after David Drane survived a chance to keeper Cooke he scored 22 of the next 31 runs.

Draino went to drive a ball from Decker that wasn't there, and was caught and bowled. The D/L sheets came out as the rain periodically scuttered and stopped (Merrion were just ahead). Then Decker produced two more deliveries from the Gerry Duffy library of not-quite-the-pie-you-thought-it-was.

Rory Allright (8) and Simon Morrissey (1) each holed out to the grateful Mark McDaid lurking in the deep. 80/6 and Limavady just ahead on the D/L. Jeff Short joined his opener, and the pair took the runs on offer to catch up with D/L.

Ronnie should have been caught a couple of times but survived to reach a well-played fifty, not bad for a guy from the seconds and thirds (as is Draino). He finally succumbed for 60 to Sabir, caught and bowled, with Merrion still 16 runs short.

Cillian O'Donoghue (2*) hung around, and Jeff Short (31*) finished things off with 6,4 off Sabir's final two deliveries: 142/7 off 39 overs. Ricky McDaid took 2/17 off 7 overs and Decker Curry 3/25 off 9 overs.

It was a hard-fought match played in good spirit, with the dropped catches in the end evening out. Merrion got the better of the conditions to field in, and took full advantage. The Hills and North County play their match in Milverton in Tuesday 15th, and Rush and Leinster hope to replay their match in Rathmines before that on Saturday 12th.

Only Donemana now stand in the way of yet another LCU side lifting the Bob Kerr Irish Senior Cup. What are the UK teams going to do about this continuing southern dominance? They've tried changing the rules to allow their highly-paid pros to win matches, but without success.

The NWCU will probably roll up their sleeves and try again, while the NCU will pretend it hasn't happened and continue to talk their few half-decent players onto the Irish team while doing nothing about the slide in overall standards.

When I was growing up in my overspill London County Council estate in Essex we occasionally used to go up west to see a show. I liked the farces at the Whitehall Theatre - Brian Rix and the gang. When I got to Dublin I noticed there were no farces in the theatre.

I became friendly with a jobbing comedian and impersonator who got the odd spot on Gaybo. When we both had funds and nothing more urgent to do, Dermot Morgan and I would go sur le piste for the day. Dermot reckoned that satire was impossible in Ireland because it couldn't compete with reality.

I know what he meant. Coco the Clown was funny (Chipperfield's Circus at Olympia ), but not a patch on the harlequins who run the LCU. Their website omits to mention the location of the Alan Murray LHW 20:20 finals; their handbook doesn't contain any reference to the competition at all!

Fortunately, a message to the CricketEurope website forum from Pembroke's Emmett Whaley on Thursday let everybody know it was on Sunday in Sydney Parade, with an 11 o'clock k.o. Now you know why I don't submit stuff to the LCU website - apart from the fact that they wouldn't take it!

Jesters, jokers, merry-andrews, pierrots or whatever, there was nothing the LCU could do about the weather. We couldn't even blame Kevin O'Herlihy: he left the Met Service a while ago (and then emigrated to Thailand!) Although it cleared up as lunchtime approached, the pitch and surrounds weren't going to facilitate any form of serious cricket.

Which is a great shame, as the Pembroke boys and girls had obviously been working their socks off to prepare the ground, pavilion and bar for the event. It is hoped to re-stage the whole shebang on Sunday 27th July, a rest/rain day in the European Championships.

The Sydney Parade ground will now host Monday's LCU Public Schools Festival match between Rugby and Malvern (gondolas are available to punt you up Cold Blow Lane to the Railway Union lake). On the same day Leinster U19s play Sutton Valence in Anglesea Road , both with an 11 o'clock k.o.

On Tuesday, Leinster play Malvern at Claremont Road while Rugby take on Sutton Valence at Sydney Parade. Wednesday's action moves up to the Park, Leinster hosting Rugby in Phoenix while Malvern take on Sutton Valence at my alma mater, Civil Service.

The brains behind this event is LCU Cricket Development Officer, Brían O'Rourke. Sponsorship comes from Lewis Hohn Williams and McDonald's/Tim Ackland. There are a few things the LCU can get right.