The sun was forecast to shine all weekend, but on which club would it shine brightest? If Clontarf won both their matches, the Senior League title would be theirs. This is what I had forecast, but could I possibly be as good as Met Eireann? I drove out to Milverton on Saturday morning to begin to find out.

There was bad news awaiting me: Mrs Kitteringham hadn't baked a batch of scones. So, dry-mouthed, I watched as Jeremy Bray and Albert van der Merwe went out to bat after Luke Clinton had won the toss for The Hills and decided to take first hit. The groundsman was in Toronto , and had left instructions with one of his brothers for a nice bouncy pitch.

With dew still on the grass, the ball zipped around a bit , but Bray stroked a brace of boundaries while his partner cut one through the keeper's gloves for four more. Then in his second over Cusack got one to leave the left-hander and nick off to Hokin at slip. 19-1 became 29-2 in the 8th over when the normally staid van der Merwe had a yahoo at Joe Morrissey and was bowled.

Patrick Byrne didn't move his feet and wafted a ball from Cusie through to Richard Forrest behind the stumps. Next over Cusack came round the wicket to Thomas Murphy and the youngster obliged by nicking off to Forrest. Next over he came back over the stumps and Mike Baumgart whacked a half-tracker straight to Joe Morrissey at mid wicket.

Michael O'Herlihy is frequently generous with his wicket, and turned blind to run a third bye but was sent back too late to avoid being run out. It was now 46-6 in the sixteenth over and the game was as good as finished. Cusack bowled his quota straight through to finish with 10-0-27-4. Rod Hokin had replaced his skipper at the pavilion end, and wheeled away his leggies economically but unthreateningly.

Greg Molins purveyed his slow left-arm from the other end equally untroublingly, but Max Sorensen and Mark Dwyer had no option but to occupy the crease and feed off the crumbs. They had got the score as far as 93 after 30 overs, and began to have thoughts of a more than trivial target. Then Max (24) gave Jo Mo his second catch off Andrew Poynter's gentle off breaks.

Six overs later Dwyer (30) holed out to Bill Coghlan off Rod Hokin and it was a sad-looking 114-8. But the brothers Clinton, under the watchful eye of their father, ignored his instructions to bat the overs and went for the line of beech trees beyond the boundary. Joseph hit three sixes before lobbing Morrissey to Eoghan Delany for 25. Emmett Branagan batted sensibly and so did Luke once he remembered what his daddy told him.

The pair took the score to 179, and on the last ball of the 50th over Luke was caught for 33, his partner unbeaten on 11. Hokin finished with 1/21 off 10, Molins 0/21 off 8, Poynter 2/49 off 9 and Morrissey 2/37 off 8.

Greg Molins and Bill Coghlan gave Clontarf a quick start, reaching 34 in the 7th over when Molins cut Luke Clinton to van der Merwe at slip. In the absence of James Rogan, Jeremy Bray was keeping wicket, a job at which he has become quite proficient. But The Hills bowling was getting nowhere against Coghlan and Hokin, and Jeremy gave the gloves to Mike Baumgart so he could try his slow medium pacers.

It worked. Baumgart clung on to nick from Hokin (15) in the 21st over off Bray, and as Andrew Poynter came in and started working the ball beautifully off his legs, Coghlan went into a torpor. Drinks didn't revive him, and he survived a run out chance before being caught by Luke off Branagan for 40. Alex Cusack came in and immediately started to accumulate and raise the tempo.

The two internationals added 65 in 13 overs, Poynter reaching his fifty in the fortieth over. Max Sorensen returned for one last futile gesture, and in fact made two. He trapped Poynter lbw for 52 seven runs short of victory. Then he did the same to Eoghan Delany, and Joe Morrissey had to come in to help Cusack (32*) get his team home by five wickets. Sorensen finished with 10-2-29-2, Bray with 9-1-25-1. The other bowling figures I won't trouble you with.

A bottle of reserva Chilean merlot couldn't wash away the Arsenal's continuing frailties in Manchester , and after bacon and scrambled egg I set the autopilot for Rathmines. I had to override it to hold off a boy racer (he was actually older than me, and certainly old enough to know that the 50 kph speed limit still applies on a Sunday morning whether or not you're late for church!).

Leinster were missing Carlos Brathwaite, back in Barbados for a feed of chicken and macaroni pie, George Dockrell, in Toronto with Clontarf's Adrian D'Arcy and The Hills's groundsman, Jason Molins, on his honeymoon, and JP Dwyer, living off his heroics last Friday. Clontarf brought in Jordan Coghlan for Paul Ryan, which reduced the noise level by 20 decibels, and lowered the entropy of the Clontarf team by a huge margin.

Leinster won the toss and decided to bat. The oldest inhabitant of the Rathmines village, Gerry Duffy, was watching as the oldest member of the team, Mark Jones, strode out to open the batting with the youngest, Hugh McDonnell. Jonesey whacked JoMo straight(-ish) for a four and then hoist him high over cow corner for a six.

Hugh got off the mark by running a risky single to cover and collecting two overthrows – that's known in the trade as turning ones into threes. Off the last ball of Cusack's third over Jones nicked to slip where Poynter snaffled the catch. Craig Mallon joined McDonnell and the two rode their luck for a while.

Tiggy Mallon edged Cusack to Hokin at second slip, and the ball bounced off Hokin's wrist onto Poynter's head and onto the ground, closely followed by Poynter. I know keepers often wear lids these days, but now slips might start using them too! As the pair grew in confidence they started to play the odd cricket shot.

None was better than the on drive by McDonnell which he watched roll towards the straight mid wicket boundary and stop about fifteen centimetres short. As the pursuing fielder retrieved and returned the ball, Hugh hastily completed a second run. The first run was called short, so that was what's known in the trade as turning the threes into ones.

Fifty was passed in the fifteenth over, 37 of them off the bat, and the partnership prospered as the drinks interval approached. On 28, McDonnell survived a huge appeal for caught behind off Hokin. Don't youngsters know to walk when the opposition professional appeals? Where's the etiquette and sportsmanship of the game gone?

Hokin had better luck off the last ball of the 24th over when he appealed for leg before against Mallon, and the Kiwi had to go for 34 out of 97. That should have been drinks, but the 25th over was started, and McDonnell was immediately bowled for 36 by Eoghan Delany. Drinks were now taken, and Ian O'Herlihy and Anton Scholtz took strike.

Ian allowed a Hokin leggie to pass behind him, and as Forrest took it down the leg side the bails fell to the ground. Had he been bowled by a wide? No, decided umpire JJ Labuschagne after consultation with his colleague Nigel Parnell, and one run was added to the score. Later that over a delivery didn't pass by Ian's pad, and JJ decided it wouldn't have passed by the stumps either.

Dave Lucas battled away with his captain, and the pair took the score to 129. Alex Cusack was recalled to bowl the 35th over, and clean bowled Scholtz for 15. Will Lennon was bowled by Poynter next over, meaning Leinster had collapsed from 97-1 to 131-6, all this to bowling that, Cusie excepted, could best be described as Pies Reunited. When Andrew Poynter's bowling looks good, you know the rest is awful.

Callum Patterson joined Dave Lucas and the two second team players got to work on the second team bowling they were faced with. Patterson especially played some nice shots and the pair added 60 good runs in 11 overs. They were taking riskier and riskier singles as the overs approached the fifty mark, and eventually Patterson overdid it and ran himself out for 27.

In the next over, the 48th, Robbie Kenealy played his trademark swish for a single, Lucas was bowled by JoMo for 43, Chris Byrnes departed likewise for 0, Rob Miley saved the hat-trick, took a single and then ran himself out off the last ball of the over. Not satisfied with one collapse, Leinster had subsided from 191-6 to 193 all out.

Cusack took 2/25 off his 10, JoMo 2/33 off 9, and the less said about the rest, the better. Stella Downes, the Clontarf scorer, gave me the bowling figures which didn't include anything for Greg Molins. She knows her cricket, does Stella.

Poor Greg capped a forgettable match by taking a single off his first ball and nicking his second through to Ian O'Herlihy. No wonder he stood his ground and demanded the umpire to give him out. He didn't want to go back to face his watching parents, wife and infant! Bill Coghlan and Rod Hokin slapped some dross from Robbie Kenealy and Hugh McDonnell, but in the seventh over Bill got a good one from Will Lennon and was caught at slip by Jonesey for 18 out of 34.

Andrew Poynter immediately started playing some lovely shots, got quickly to 15, when he was badly dropped by McDonnell off Lennon. A drop from that combination almost cost the Irish Senior Cup Final the previous week, but this time it cost only three as Poynter was caught by Patterson of Chris Byrnes for 18. That completed an arithmetic progression for Chris: first ball duck; third change bowler; fifth ball of the over.

Byrnes produced a lively spell, bowling Cusack for 5, and when Rod Hokin was caught behind off Rob Miley first ball after drinks for 43, it was 111-5 and the Senior League title was a long way off. Eoghan Delany and Joe Morrissey got their heads down and ground their way forward. After all, they only wanted 83 off 24.5 overs, and some of the bowling was pretty ordinary. All they had to do was survive and the runs would come.

They shouldn't have survived. Whatever about the hugely confident lbw appeal against JoMo when he was 4 (the umpire was in a much better position than I was), Deller was dropped at slip by Anton Scholtz of all people on 14. They worked it around, a nurdle here, a slog there, a pie or two gratefully whacked, until the 41st over, when JoMo was bowled by Byrnes for 19.

159-6 became 160-7 next over when Matt D'Arcy was caught behind off Scholtz. He didn't like it, but he had to go. Mark Jones put down Richard Forrest at cover before he had scored, not an easy chance, but one Jonesey normally pockets. It all got very fraught, and the umpires felt the need to ask the skipper to cool his troops. I thought it would have been much better if the umps could have done it with a quiet word rather than a public confrontation.

Eoghan and Richard toughed it out, Scholtz and Byrnes used up their overs, Will Lennon could only bowl at one end, and eventually a succession of pies was despatched, some with lovely shots, and Clontarf got home with fifteen balls to spare, Delany not out on 47 and Forrest on 13. Lennon took 1/27 off 9, Scholtz 1/28 off 10 and Byrnes 3/35 off 10.

Clontarf deserved their league title. Even if their bowling is over-reliant on Morrissey and Hokin (and Cusack when he's not playing for Ireland ), their batting is deep. At the beginning of the season I tipped Clontarf for the league (but not the cup, which they retained), although I expressed reservations about Joe Morrissey's captaincy when things went astray. I was wrong about that, and I congratulate Joe and his team.