with Brian Quigley, January 2014
Greystones RFC finished the year in excellent form, sitting in second place in the Ulster Bank All-Ireland Rugby League Division 2B table. January will see Stones taking on Navan RFC away and Thomond away as they seek to sustain their promotion challenge. The 30-23 win at Dr Hickey Park on December 7 against Skerries built on an unbroken series of league wins through October and November over Sligo, Boyne (both at Dr Hickey Park), Suttonians, Instonians and Richmond (all away). Only an opening day reverse against Tullamore at Dr Hickey Park is keeping Stones off the top of the table.
This month will see some schools in our county kick off or finalise preparations for the Beauchamps Leinster Schools Junior and Senior Cups. Presentation College Bray have a very tough first-round draw, against Clongowes Wood College, while St Gerard’s will face a qualifier in the first round. These ties will take place the week beginning February 3.
At Senior Cup level none of the county’s sides are automatically in the top-ranking Beauchamps Senior Cup, but we have three sides starting in the second- tier Vinnie Murphy Cup. East Glendalough from Wicklow Town will face Tempelogue College in the first round, with CUS awaiting the victor. St Gerard’s will face CBS Naas while Presentation College Bray will face CBS Wexford with the winner facing St Columba’s. All these ties will take place the week beginning January 9.
Valiant Effort By Fionnuala
Kilcoole AC’s Fionnuala Britton produced an excellent performance to finish fourth in the Senior Ladies race at the European Cross Country championships in Belgrade on December 8. Sophie Durate of France won the race, ahead of GB’s Gemma Steel and Ana Felix of Portugal. Such is the strength of competition at this level that a matter of seconds is all that separated Fionnuala from a medal. For her outstanding achievements throughout last year, Fionnuala is Inside Back’s Wicklow sportsperson of 2013.
As reported in our November edition, the ParkRun phenomena is the fastest- growing sporting event in the world and two new ParkRuns have already been announced in Leinster for Spring 2014. Ardgillan Castle’s ParkRun will commence in Skerries in February and will be followed later in the spring by one in Naas. Hopefully it is only a matter of time before Wicklow hosts its own version of this event. We suggested a few locations back in November – any ideas for other possibilities?
Wanderers Look to Future
Bray Wanderers season tickets are currently on sale for the 2014 season and are very reasonably priced at just €99 for an adult and €49 euros for a child/OAP. The new season isn’t too far away and Wanderers will be hoping to push on from the heroic end to the 2013 season which saw them survive relegation from a seemingly impossible situation. This heroic effort has earned the Wanderers Inside Back’s Wicklow Team of the Year award for 2013. Wanderers will probably promote some of their U19 squad to the first team squad for the new campaign. The U19’s continued their solid performance this season with draws away to UCD and Athlone in December, a month which also saw them lose narrowly to high-flying Waterford in the league and to holders Cork in the Enda McGuill Cup quarter finals. In other soccer news in the county Greystones United exited the FAI Intermediate Cup in early December when they lost out in the third round to an excellent Mayfield team from Cork. United, who were the last remaining Wicklow side in the competition, can now focus on moving up the table in Senior Division 1A Sunday of the Leinster Senior League. United’s neighbours Greystones AFC lead the way for Wicklow teams in the LSL, sitting second in Senior Division 1 Sunday (a division that also includes Arklow Town) while Wicklow Rovers will be looking to move up the Senior Division 1B table early in the year.
Joyce Helps Ireland to Treble
Ed Joyce from Bray was part of the Ireland cricket team that won the ICC Intercontinental Cup Final against Afghanistan at the ICC Academy in Dubai between December 10-13. The win followed quickly after Ireland’s win at the Qualifying tournament for the 2014 World Twenty20 Championships in the UAE and was Ireland’s 3rd trophy of the year. We are actually the only cricket nation ever to win three tournaments in one calendar year!
The Intercontinental Cup is a cricket tournament organised by the ICC as part of its cricket development programme. It allows Associate Members to play test-match cricket with a view to eventual promotion to full test-match status. Currently only England, South Africa, Australia, Sri Lanka, Bangledesh, Pakistan, New Zealand, India, Zimbabwe and the West Indies have full test status. Test cricket is the longest form of the game (Twenty20 and one-day cricket are the other formats). Given that Ireland have now won the Intercontinental Cup more times than anyone else (four) it is surely only a matter of time before the Blarney Army are granted a seat at cricket’s top table.
Chess Club Make Right Moves
If cricket can be viewed as a game of tactics and battle strategy on a full-size pitch, chess is surely a relation but on a smaller scale. Bray/ Greystones Chess Club’s first team finished the year in style with a 3-5 win at Balbriggan on December 7 to lie third in Division 1 (Armstrong Cup) of the Leinster Chess Union’s Chess League.
The club have notched up four wins from five rounds of the league with John Joyce contributing four wins from his five matches.
Bray man John is a former Ireland U19 Chess champion and was also Leinster Chess champion in 2011.
He is also the older brother of current international cricketers Isobel, Cecelia and Ed.
Wicklow Town have a team in the Division 6 Bodley Cup Group B and are currently second in the table with an excellent chance of moving up to Division 5 (BEA Cup) status. We wish all the county’s chess teams every success in 2014.
