The big talking point in NCU cricket this autumn is not the season passed, but the season coming after CIYMS appear to have scooped the services of Nigel Jones (ex Civil Service North) and Johnny Thompson (ex Brigade) with at least one other prominent player in negotiations. At its nicest level the news will be received with a certain amount of acceptance by their rivals given the Belmont Club’s open advocacy of chequebook recruitment, but many sceptics will see this attempt to buy success as the seedier side of professionalism in local cricket. After all, a professional team against a team of amateurs, even with an overseas professional, should have enough firepower to blow any rival club side apart.

Some clubs may appear outwardly envious of cash-rich CIYMS and their generous sponsor, but privately they abhor the attempt to buy success and have made noises within the NCU to put controls in place to limit the influx of local and overseas professionals. For their part the NCU hierarchy has answered the calls with several successful proposals at the recent AGM to curtail the number of overseas professionals, but by their own admission they acknowledge they are unable to police local professionalism.

That said, the union area was defined to establish who qualified as a local player and who didn’t, but not to the satisfaction of some people in the North-West who felt it left the door open for clubs in the NCU area to pillage the best of their talent. Well, that may be a bit over the top as CIYMS is the only club that has been enticing North-West players down the Glenshane Pass and they haven’t exactly been dragged by chains.

Money talks with certain players and Johnny Thompson’s name always figures when it comes to the annual rumour mongering that takes place after every season these days. Not surprisingly he’s succumbed to CIYMS or their sponsor’s offer, but I doubt if any other club has scouts roaming the North-West passage in search of similar talent. Thompson is more than a useful all-rounder, but there aren’t many others in his category.

Defining the union area remains something of a misnomer given that Monaghan play in the NCU and at least one player travels from County Tyrone to play for a Belfast club. Indeed, has there ever been a defined NCU or North-West area given that for many years clubs from the North-West played in the NCU Challenge Cup and players like the Semple brothers from Limavady were regular bi-union men who played for clubs in both unions during the same season.

Both these doors were eventually closed by rule changes some years ago, but until now nobody has seen the need to define a union area. However, that may need to be considered now as the movement of the top North-West players into the NCU area to play club cricket inadvertently adds them to the Northern Knights Interprovincial Squad. In fairness the NCU administration has been an innocent bystander in this player movement so it’s a bit rich to criticize the union for including the North-West area in their union area because quite frankly to do otherwise would have been a joke and unenforceable.

Also, it is debateable whether the influx of several players from the North-West does anything for the development of the Northern Knights Squad because when you add the inclusion of several Ireland-qualified players from overseas this limits the number of places for genuine young NCU players coming through. Some people might view this as a great asset and short-term benefit, but when the money runs dry and the hired guns go back home what will be left?

The long-term damage could be severe. The North-West might feel aggrieved to be weakened by this exodus, but perhaps the NCU should be more concerned given the influx of players from outside their union area has been largely beyond their control. In much the same way that the local CIYMS players might feel they have been downgraded in the club teams with the arrival of so many hired guns the same could happen at interprovincial level as locally developed Northern Knights players will be similarly downgraded by the new boys in town.

Cricket Ireland controls the rules and regulations for the interprovincial tournaments and may welcome the developing situation as healthy competition, but although there’s merit in having the ‘best play the best’ and raising the standard of our major internal representative competition we may see a backlash in the NCU area when the nomads move on.

Rather than wait until the damage is done perhaps some cognizance should be given to the issues now? Good as he is as a player, Johnny Thompson playing a couple of seasons for the Northern Knights while he’s on the payroll of CIYMS or their sponsor does little for the development of NCU cricket. But he’s not the villain of the piece as he’s entitled to make the most of his talent.