YOUTH TO THE FORE AS DONEMANA PROVE WHY THEY’RE CHAMPIONS

The final of this year’s Northern Bank Senior Cup will be contested by Donemana and Bready after both recorded convincing wins in their respective semi finals over the weekend. As a spectacle the decider could turn out to be anything but thankfully the signs are that with so much quality on both sides we can expect to come back on the second day with the game still relatively well poised. The clubs have fairly similar profiles; both relying on a blend of youth and experience, both working hard off the field to ensure they can provide the best possible facilities and most importantly, two clubs with an infrastructure the envy of the country.

Whilst it is in no way meant to be disrespectful to anyone it is a crying shame that Donemana and Bready are among a minority of North West clubs who still have their own underage set up. The Holm side can field four teams in the North West league as well as midweek and boys teams and of course you will remember that last season their underage sides swept all before them both domestically and on the Inter-Provincial front. Bready have five Saturday teams as well as midweek and underage teams and just last weekend their under-12’s beat Ardmore in the final of their domestic cup in front of a big crowd at The Rectory.

Unfortunately however, these days it would appear that those two clubs have become the exception rather than the rule. As the credit crunch started to bite last year there were murmurings from several clubs that they had decided to invest their money in the long term future as opposed to any immediate gains, but the fact is that little or nothing has changed to date.

Fair enough, Rome wasn’t built in a day and I know the likes of Glendermott and North Fermanagh to name just two have brought in qualified coaches to try to begin the process of reversing the pattern that had overtaken

North West cricket in the past decade. Word has it though that after all the talk of new leaves, several high profile clubs have continued to try to rescue their season by filling more brown envelopes. There’s an old saying that the road to nowhere is paved with good intentions but there is also a need to be brave when the initial impact of your decision hits home, and that has not been the case. Rather than single out any club you only have to look around at the make up of our league at the moment to see where clubs are starting to fall on their own swords.

Take Brigade and Glendermott for example in the top flight having spent God knows how much in the past ten years but finding themselves now further back in the pecking order than when they started the spend. Fair enough, Brigade’s was a wonderful trip with a stack of memories in the bank and their name on a host of trophies and whilst they retain a second eleven of sorts and a midweek side they are but a shadow of those days now.

The Rectory side spent with reckless abandon for several years, and entertained the North West with the addition of the likes of Hasan Raza, but bar a solitary Senior Cup win they don’t even have the luxury of a legacy of success to look back on. Boys’ cricket is for now a thing of the past at Bonds Street and for a club steeped in tradition that’s an awful shame.

Limavady have never made any secret of the fact that they only want to play senior cricket and I remember a very frank interview in this column with Ivan Lapsley a year or so ago when he acknowledged that fact and made it clear they didn’t feel the need to apologise for it. Things aren’t much better at Strabane either with little or nothing coming through the ranks and although Peter Gillespie’s side are enjoying a fantastic campaign to date there are few signs of the next Mark Gillespie in the wings.

Contrast that with Donemana where the next Junior McBrine announced himself loud and clear to a massive crowd of onlookers in Saturday’s semi final and you get a picture of how the balance of power is likely to be decided in the coming years. There are of course clubs who are doing everything they can to lift themselves on to that level and they deserve all the support they can get in their efforts. Eglinton are beginning to see the fruits of their efforts to build from the base up and the likes of Fox Lodge, Coleraine, Killyclooney, Ardmore and even The Nedd have set their stall out to follow suit.

A lot of the clubs have argued that CricketIreland or the North West Union could be doing more to support them in their development and whilst certainly the parent body has a major role to play in the process, the lead still has to come from the clubs. You only have to look at the opportunities that are beginning to present themselves to the likes of the McCarter brothers at Killyclooney, Craig Averill and Stuart Thompson at Eglinton, Chris Dougherty and David Rankin at Bready and a host of youngsters at The Holm to see the benefits that can be reaped. Unfortunately, the clubs who put so much work into the development of their young players often have to sit and watch as the vultures hover over them but that is another argument for another day and something that may require an administrative change in due course.

At a meeting last week the discussion turned to how best the situation could be rectified and among a number of suggestions, some more workable than others, was an idea from a very high profile individual from within our sport who for the purpose of discussion will remain nameless. His suggestion was simple; teams in Division 1 of our domestic league have certain criteria to meet as it is, for example operational covers, working sightscreens, coloured kits and so on. If you don’t have them, you don’t play. Why then, he suggested, can it not be a prerequisite of playing in Division 1 that your club must have at least one team participating in any of the underage leagues? It may sound like a lot of work, indeed it may sound like a lot of nonsense but it’s an idea that if it were fine tuned, may go some way towards addressing the underlying problem of youth development.

I was at Bready for that under-12 final last week and saw a lot of proud parents, coaches and family members. There were also 22 young lads who were laying the seeds at their clubs and in the process, giving them a chance of surviving for another generation.

The following night I happened to be in Donemana when there was an Intermediate game going on at the new pitch and decided to take a dander down. In the laneway between the two pitches there was a game going on between seven or eight boys aged between three and five. Their wicket at one end was a broken chair and all the players had taken on an identity for the purpose of the match. As I passed, “Azhar” was batting and I wondered how long it had been since Andy McBrine played his last innings there.

It was quite fitting that as the last Limavady wicket fell in Sunday’s semi final, the youngster trapping Johnny Martin lbw, the Donemana supporters were singing “that’s why we’re champions”.
You know what? It probably is.