PEMBROKE

• Captain: Theo Lawson
• Overseas professional: Nick Stapleton
• Players in: Fiachra Tucker, Zach Micklewright, Will Todd
• Players out: None
• Young player to watch: Macdara Cosgrave and Donncha Tucker

Pembroke suffered relegation last season as they suffered more than most with player availability, and skipper Theo Lawson will be hoping for better fortunes in 2023, although they won't be able to call on their Irish internationals for most of the year.

The overseas professional is highly rated Nick Stapleton, who hails from the famous St George's club in Sydney, best known in these parts for their association with Jeremy Bray and David Langford-Smith.

Stapleton has been the club's Player of the Year for four consecutive seasons, and was also named in the NSW Premier Grade team of the year. He has taken 157 wickets and scored 3700 runs for them since moving from Randwick Petersham.

The club are boosted by the return of Fiachra Tucker from his travels, while they will also be able to play Zach Micklewright and Will Todd - the latter will feature for Trinity in the T20s.

There will also be big roles to play for Macdara Cosgrave and Donncha Tucker, both back from a successful Ireland U19s trip to South Africa,

"The 2022 season ended disappointingly," skipper Theo Lawson told CricketEurope. "Promotion back to the Premier League is the number one goal for 2023.

"There is plenty of strong teams and good players in the Championship, we’ll need to be on our game every week to ensure we are thereabouts at the end of the season.

"I'm very happy to secure a player of Nick Stapleton’s pedigree. He has had a strong season in Sydney, I'm hopeful he can continue his form for us.

"We don’t expect to see our Irish players much this season, this means we will require big seasons from the rest of squad which is boosted by the return of Fiachra Tucker from Australia."

Pembroke begin their season on Saturday April 29th with away T20 clashes against Railway Union and YMCA.