As we reach the Christmas break, a quick look around the leagues to see how each of our teams is doing in the Leinster Leagues.
We’ll start off at the top, where the Armstrong are reliably mid-table yet again. After being in the relegation zone by round 3, we’ve opened up a big gap to the bottom two now, aided by a round 5 win over reigning champions Phibsboro – the second year in a row (and second time in ten seasons!) we’ve beaten the reigning champions. We’ve been aided by a very reliable squad; we’re averaging just one sub a game, and our subs are on a respectable 2/5. Even I’ve won! John Healy and Brendan Lyons are the Armstrong’s candidates for the club’s top scorer trophy on 3/5.
As is common enough in the Armstrong, the promoted sides occupy the bottom two spots. We’ve yet to face either; we face Celbridge on the final day and travel to Curragh in the first game of the new year in a game which will take place alongside the same fixture in the Bodley – a rare occasion of two of our sides playing alongside each other away from home. It last happened in November 2011, when the Armstrong and Ennis both travelled to Kilkenny.
The Heidenfeld had a boost just yesterday when Bray lost 5½-2½ in Kilkenny, meaning we enter the Christmas in tenth and out of the drop zone. Closer inspection of the results actually makes better reading for us – ourselves and Bray have played four of the same teams (including our match against each other), and we’ve scored 2½ points more in those games. The only other tie we’ve played has seen us lose 7-1 to newly-relegated Rathmines A, while Bray lost 5-3 to Malahide. So we are still on course to avoid the drop, although we do need to improve.
The other side in the relegation zone is Naomh Barróg, who have been producing some exceptional results in a season where they’ve gone as low as 1050 on board 2! The hope (from our point of view!) would be that they can’t sustain their form, and that they’ll drop back and occupy one of the relegation spots in advance of the final round, when we play Malahide. Lucan, the other promoted side, have played all the bottom three and could yet get dragged into things. We start the new year with a tie against Phibsboro, who are stronger than their league position suggests but against whom we should be targetting a solid score.
Our team is stronger than last year, but we’ve been dropping silly points (and I can’t really point the finger at anyone in particular in fairness!) We’re also struggling for a regular team; Brendan Cuffe, Steven Dixon and Kev May have played once between them, and we’re averaging three subs a game, though they have just under half our total score (6/14)! Ciarán Ruane and Ross Beatty have another 6/10 between them as the team’s joint top-scorers, while myself, Ronan Sweeney and the two Brendans are on 0/9!
In the O’Hanlon, we’re exceeding expectations, loitering just below the promotion spots. Having lost the first game against a side promoted from the BA, we’ve gone from strength to strength since then, culminating in last week’s away win over Ballinasloe. It’s a huge improvement on last year, when we noted we were exceeding expectations by being only half a point adrift in the relegation zone! The final two games of the Inchicore v Dún Laoghaire tie will clear things up at the top, but for now, there’s just 2½ points between second and seventh. We’ve played all the top half except for Blanchardstown, which should be to our advantage in the second half of the season. Again, we’ve a settled squad with just one sub per game on average, while captain Eddie Gahan is the only leading scorer not on 3 – he’s on 3½/5.
The Bodley A have been the story of the season so far, courtesy of the amazing win over overwhelming league favourites Wicklow. For all that, we’re actually not top of the table, with Dún Laoghaire there at the moment courtesy of a draw with Wicklow and big wins over sides in the bottom four, who are a bit adrift of the rest at this stage. We play Dún Laoghaire next – with the first board actually on Wednesday – and if we can win that, we put a lot of pressure on them and Wicklow, the two other realistic title contenders. Enniscorthy and Rathmines could well take points off Dún Laoghaire and Wicklow, so we can be thankful to have gotten them out of the way first and have picked up an excellent – if slightly fortuitous – 7½ points. Realistically, Wicklow are still favourites for the title – and it has been confirmed only the group winners will be promoted – but we can only keep winning our games and hope for a change of luck by the season’s end! Mihailo and Dan are leading the way on 3, with Mihailo’s only defeat being against Séamus Duffy.
In the other group, we were unlucky enough to start off with games against the two group favourites, Drogheda and Gonzaga, but we performed very well in those games to take 3 points, and have to be disappointed with “just” 7½ from the other two games, having dropped 1½ points in easily won games. However, for a largely new group of players, top half would be an excellent outcome. Everyone bar Luke-Andrew – who won a board prize last year – is off the mark. Alex Byrne is the team’s top scorer on, of course, 3. With a rating of 728 and a rating performance after five games (including subs) of 1599, I think we can safely predict big things ahead for him! Gonzaga v Blanchardstown has been postponed until after exams I think, so the table looks like this ahead of a trip to the Curragh in January –