THERE was much to be positive about the Irish women's week-long festival against the visiting Pakistan and Nottinghamshire teams. The test nation was hammered in a Twenty20 international on Monday, thanks to an Isobel Joyce half century, and but for a stupendous collapse could have racked up an ODI win the following day.

Needing just 142, Ireland were in the box seat at 106 for 4 after useful contributions from Joyce, Jill Whelan and Eimear Richardson before one of the most incredible overs seen on the Castle Avenue ground. Sana Mir took two wickets and two more fell to run-outs as Ireland fell from 112-5 to 112-9. It was heart-breaking stuff but new team manager Natasha Smith refused to be deflated.

'We showed we are well capable of being up there with the likes of Pakistan, but the collapse was very disappointing. We bowled and fielding brilliantly and were well placed when all of a sudden silly calling and running led to a bit of a panic. We'll learn from that and work on it.'

The two day RSA Challenge series saw Ireland lost three of four games but again some of the younger players took their opportunities. 'Melissa Scott-Hayward is doing well with the bat', said Smith, 'while Amy Keneally hit the ball well on only her third cap.'

Ireland missed out on the World Cup in March – the first time in six runnings of the event – which also cost them a place in the World Twenty20 Cup which runs parallel to the men's event in England from next weekend.

Smith, who came here three years ago from Johannesburg to work as an architect, is enjoying her first season in the job. 'The week was very good for us. The weather was brilliant as a lot of them haven't had a chance to play much this year and it was a very important part of our build-up to the Europeans in August.

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Next Saturday marks the centenary of the birth of one of Ireland's greatest ever players. EDR Shearer was an Englishman who came to work in Derry as a 17 year old and spent most of his life in the north-west. He was the pre-eminent batsman in that union for many years and broke the LCU/NCU hegemony that shut out players from the region.

Astonishing as it may now seem, no-one had been capped from a north-west club in the previous 77 years of Irish selections, but Donald Shearer's batting became so prolific that it became an unsustainable position. Even at the last minute the Leinster union objected to Shearer under a rule requiring a player to have played for his province before being picked for Ireland. The day before the selectors met Shearer hit 80 in an hour off Jimmy Boucher and Eddie Ingram and his cap was secured.

Shearer's Ireland was patchy, but he ended with 1300 runs at an average of 23.21. He scored two centuries, the last the first by an Ireland player at Lord's which he achieved aged 42 in 1951. Some say his finest hour was against the brilliant Australian tourists of 1938. ‘Tiger' Bill O'Reilly ran through the Irish order, ripping out 8-46 in the match, but Shearer played him with skill. Ireland lost by an innings, 106 all out, with only one man making double figures – our ‘Don' with 56.

Shearer was a top-class soccer player too, playing for an Irish League side that beat the English League twice, and for the Great Britain team at the 1936 Olympics. Shearer died in 1999 having just entered his 90s.

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Monday: World Twenty20 Cup warm-up: Ireland v Holland, Lord's; LSL Section B: YMCA v Rush

Tuesday: World Twenty20 Cup warm-up: Ireland v West Indies (The Oval)

Saturday: DGM League final: Leinster v Railway Union, Malahide


gsiggins@tribune.ie