Team on the day: Clodagh O’Connor, Aimee Scollard, Tara O’Brien, Molly Butterly, Vanessa Scollard, Ceola Brophy, Ella Fagan, Rebecca Campion, Genevieve Treacy, Caoimhe Emmett, Lucy Butterly.

We met our match today when we travelled out to Rathmines to play a strong Leinster side. Clodagh O’Connor the Captain on the day won the toss and decided to field first. Tara O’Brien opened the bowling with tremendous accuracy getting her first two wickets on the first two balls, her first wicket was caught by Ceola Brophy at square leg and her second wicket was caught on the boundary by Aimee Scollard. It was clear at this stage that the junior girls listened to their coach Jeremy Bray the night before as they practiced high catching and fielding drills. The fielding was extremely tight all round with plenty of 4’s being saved on the boundary. Leinster made 124 runs in total.

Best bowling figures on the day;

Tara O’Brien 3-12-4

Molly Butterly 1-32-4

Vanessa Scollard 1-16-3

Ceola Brophy 0-10-2

The Hills retaliated with great speed, working hard from the start taking every available run. Highest runs on the day were Aimee Scollard as she retired at 34, she had hit with great power in her shots and herself and Vanessa Scollard (17 not out) brought the score up by 51. Ella Fagan who opened on the day made a lovely 11 runs whilst Tara O’Brien made 17 before being caught. Molly Butterly made 5 but unfortunately was bowled by Leah. The Hills finished on 110 runs, only 14 runs shy, it was a fabulous performance by each and everyone on the team. Wicket keeping on the day was excellent by Clodagh O’Connor and switched to Aimee Scollard at the half way stage, both wicket keepers did a great job behind the stumps, well done girls!

A big thanks to the Leinster umpire/coach Jenny who umpired the second half alone as I retired due to sickness. A big thanks to the Leinster scorer who took over the job on her own for the second half.

Thanks to all the Leinster girls for a great game of cricket and we look forward to meeting you again in The Hills in the future. Thanks to the junior girls coach Jeremy Bray and Robyn Searle for all their fabulous coaching throughout the week.

The Hills Cricket Club Summer Camp 2022 is taking place on the 4th, 5th and 6th of July.

Soft ball camp from 10am to 12 noon (age 5-9)

Hard ball camp from 2pm to 4pm (age 10-12)

Click on the link below to register and pay.

https://member.clubforce.com/memberships_cart_m.asp?LL_ID=2980&intMF_ID=10408&fbclid=IwAR2Hc7bzS2Aqvoe1LtktswrJy6k3RXNeqG3fZW6lidCWFM3slljLQ6l_Oww#topp

The numbers drawn in The Lotto last evening were;

4, 7, 18 & 26

There was no winner of The Jackpot.

Lucky Dip winners were Conor Donoghue & Martin Russell, €25.00 each.

The Jackpot next week will be €4,100.00.

Many thanks to Michael Dwyer Electrical for the continued sponsorship.

History was made yesterday when, for the first time ever, The Hills fielded 11 youth players in an adult senior game. Opponents on the day were Balbriggan Fifth X1 and the T20 cup match was played at Ringcommons CC. A minutes silence was observed to honour Frances Harper of Balbriggan CC who passed away yesterday.

Captain for the day Joseph Russell won the toss and elected to bat first. The Hills innings got off to the worst possible start with two wickets falling in the first 3 balls. Joseph and Hayden Clinton steadied the ship and batted sensibly to build a partnership of 87 runs in 14 overs before Hayden departed for 20 having punished any loose bowling.
Joseph scored his first senior half century, carrying his bat to end on a chanceless 60 not out. A cameo of 12 by Peter Stead helped to set Balbriggan a tough target of 132 to win.

The Balbriggan openers started well before a mix up resulted in a well-executed run out. The Hills bowlers then got on top and leg spinner Tristan Vincenzo bowled exceptionally well to take 4-9 off 3 overs. The other wickets were shared between Alan Courell jr (1-17), Chris Francis (2-2), Max Brophy (1-6) and Max Stead (1-15).
Balbriggan were bowled out for 58 resulting in a 73 run win for The Hills.

This was a strong and mature performance from a team with an average age of 14. It will be exciting to watch these players filter into the 4th, 3rds, 2nds and 1sts over the next few seasons.
Next up is another T20 cup match, this time away to Swords on Sunday 19th at 5pm.

Photo by Michael Donoghue
Team: Joseph Russell (c), Max Brophy, Hayden Clinton, Alan Courell jr, Conor Donoghue, Chris Francis, Nathan Maguire, Peter Stead, Max Stead, Tristan Vincenzo, Brandon Vincenzo

Third Man

With Saturday being a closed day for Premier League cricket, the second series of games in the IBI Corporate Finance League were played on Sunday. Fresh from last week’s comprehensive win over Malahide, The Hills welcomed Phoenix to The Vineyard; the home team won the toss and chose to bat first. An opening stand of 85 runs between Cormac McLoughlin-Gavin and Andrew Kavanagh (24) more than vindicated that decision. The second wicket partnership between Cormac and Dylan Blignaut (66) added 130 runs to the score, and a total somewhere in excess of 300 runs did not appear to be an unrealistic expectation. However, from the fall of the second wicket onwards, Phoenix began to take wickets on a regular basis, and The Hills ended on 291 for 7 wickets. Cormac McLoughlin-Gavin was the undoubted star for The Hills, and his  score of 134 runs was just reward for a supremely dedicated cricketer.

Phoenix’s reply had a disastrous start with the first wicket falling to Dylan Blignaut when there was only 1 run on the board, and Dylan took the second wicket when only 18 runs had been scored. The third wicket was taken by Matthew Weldon when Phoenix had scored 45 runs, and six wickets had fallen before the 25 overs mark. At that stage, it appeared that The Hills would wrap up the game very quickly and that it was only going to be a formality to collect another 25 points. At that stage, the lower-order Phoenix batsmen decided that attack was the best form of defence, and the fight back caused some anxiety among the home supporters.  Oliver Hald’s wicket was the seventh one to fall, and this was due to a brilliant catch by Dylan Blignaut off the bowling of Athar Farooqi. An eighty-one-run partnership between Theo Dempsey (19) and Conor Shiel (58) brough the Phoenix score up to 214, and a number of rain delays added to the general tension. After the final stoppage for rain, The Hills’ bowing attack of Weldon, Tomás Rooney-Murphy and Levon Shields showed commendable composure, and the last two Phoenix wickets were taken for 6 runs to leave The Hills with a victory margin of 67 runs.

Levon Shields was the most successful bowler for The Hills; he took 3 wickets for 39 runs and capped off his performance with a superb catch at mid-wicket. Athar Farooqi continues to impress, and his 2 wickets for 29 runs included a caught and bowled. The ever-reliable Dylan Blignaut took 2 wickets for 55 runs, and the other wickets were taken by Matthew Weldon (1 for 51) and Tomás Rooney-Murphy (1 for 18). Mark Donegan is in a superb vein of form behind the stumps; he did not concede a single bye, and he had one catch and one stumping.

With two successive wins, The Hills have had a wonderful start to its league campaign, and the team has a two games next weekend. On Saturday, Pembroke, the winners of the Sports Hub League Cup will be the visitors to The Vineyard, and Cork County will provide the opposition in the second-round tie in the Irish Senior Cup on Sunday. Until then, it is onwards and upwards.

North Kildare Minor B 76-6 (Nett 46) Lost to Hills Minor B Red 128-4 (Nett 108). On a day where fishing boats would refuse to leave harbour, The Hills were not perturbed by the remnants of Storm Alex’s strong westerlies. Losing the toss but getting your wish to bat first is a skill that Hills Captain Chandrahas would do well to keep in the years ahead. The strong westerly wind meant the North Kildare bowlers teased the Hills openers with balls that moved like a Ronaldo freekick. Settling in to the task, the Hills pairs scored as follows Tom Jackson & James Davies 25-1, Daniel Adderley & Chandrahas Chellagurki 18-1, Jarlath & Elliott Clinton 20-1, Cillian Fogarty & Sam Clinton 32-0 and Leo Russell & Ryan Clinton 33-1. With extras bringing the Hills total to 128 for 4 wickets, a challenging total for the home side was set. Shreyas Chellagurki and Aram Akbar both batted beautifully in an extra pairing requested by the home team.

Bowling & fielding has been a focus for the Hills during pre-season and once again the benefits of these extra hours were visible to all present. All our bowlers can be proud of their work but special mention to Ryan (2 for 4), Leo (2 for 3) and Aram (1-3). Not satisfied with conceding the limelight to his brother Sam pulled off a ‘Worldie’ of a catch at Mid On where mere mortals would have ducked for cover. The Hills fielding was sharp all day and Sam (that man again) combined with Leo to produce a fine run out to further dent the home team’s ambitions. All in all, a very professional performance from the Hills Minor B-Red team in conditions that tested both players, umpires and spectators. Great credit to both teams for playing with great spirt and the joint team photo reflects this nicely.

Thanks to all the parents who made the journey and got the players all the way to Kildare for 10am start.Mark, Simon Stephen and Ravi. Thanks to Simon Adderley for the report.

The following link will take you to a video of our nostalgic look back at our history as a club. Enjoy.

The Hills Ladies 2nds team’s first match of the season was played in Leinster CC. It was a beautiful summers day as the team approached the fabulous ground in Rathmines, many had come from far and near to play this match.

The Ladies second team is a mixture of sporty more mature ladies combined with a mixture of up-and-coming young talented cricketers.  We had two of our junior side making their debut on the ladies’ team, Ceola Brophy and Genevieve Treacy who played extremely well and really enjoyed the experience.  A special mention to Aimee Scollard who was determined to play on her confirmation day and who went on to bowl and field very well in the first innings.  

Anna Butterly made her debut on the ladies’ team, with a little persuasion, and only a few overs into the match went on to take a fabulous catch off Aimee Maguire’s bowling.  The fun and laughter in the field exploded as if we had won the world cup. 

Molly Butterly was behind the wickets doing what she usually does best, keep up the good work Molly.

Martha Maguire and Catherine Archer are the mentors of this young up and coming side, we are proud of all our juniors.

We won the toss and decided to field, the fielding was tight all round.

Bowling was excellent on the day with Lara McBride getting 2 wickets and Aimee Maguire getting 2 wickets and extremely tight bowling by Chloe Ericson.

Lara McBride 2-8-4

Aimee Maguire 2-17-4

Chloe Ericson 0-7-3

Leinster Total 97 runs required

Lara McBride and Aimee Maguire opened the batting with a strong display of excellent batting, Lara making 34 runs and Aimee making 47 runs, Lara’s wicket fell late on in the game (caught) with only a few runs required and Chloe went on to make 4 runs not out Well done to the all the team and a special thanks to Leinster who were so lovely and welcoming on the evening, thank you to Joe McBride for scoring and Mark Maguire for umpiring