Pictured on top: Kevin O’Brien, 1st X1 Captain, with the Nissan Cup.
No less than five young cricketers from Railway Union in Sandymount are currently abroad where they will enjoy the opportunity to play and practice daily at very high standards in the run-up to the forthcoming season.
At an enjoyable event held in the Railway Union clubhouse on January 2nd, Club and family members and friends were afforded an opportunity to wish the players ‘Bon Voyage’ before their departures.
Newly elected Club President, Brendan O’Brien was on hand to congratulate and wish the players well and give them words of advice and encouragement. Brendan told the five players to enjoy every minute of their time away, work really hard at improving their cricket skills and to embrace the different culture and lifestyle of their hosts. He said that they will all become better cricketers and that the experience will be of great benefit to their personal development. A small memento was presented to the players to mark this important occasion.
Niall O’Brien from Railway Union travelled to Sydney in 1999 to play during the winter months, which was a major stepping stone for him on his career path to International and English county cricket.
Several other players from the Club such as Roger Whelan, Kevin O’Brien, Kenny Carroll and Conor Mullen went abroad in subsequent winters. The number going away in 2016 is unprecedented and augurs well for the future of the Club.
Eoin Barron, a student at Gonzaga College is in Muir College in Uitenhage, Eastern Cape in South Africa as part of his Transition Year programme. This is part of a Leinster Cricket Union initiative, which has been assisting players in TY with schooling arrangements at Muir College since 2003. In fact, the very first player to travel under this initiative was Ross Garvey, also from Sandymount.
Patrick Duffy, a TY student at CUS College in Leeson Street is attending St. Alban’s College in Pretoria, South Africa. CUS have established strong links with St. Alban’s and pupil exchanges take place each year between the two schools. St. Alban’s has an excellent sporting tradition.
As both Eoin and Patrick are also accomplished hurlers with Clanna Gael Fontenoy, we wonder if they will also get an opportunity to display their hurling skills to the sports-mad South Africans.
Meanwhile, Rachit Gaur, Dharm Singh and Jay Singh have all travelled to Chandigarh in India for ten weeks of intensive practice at the Cricket Academy. Chandigarh is a city in the northern Punjab region of India about, 250 kilometres north of New Delhi. Indian cricket legends Kapil Dev and Yuvraj Singh both hail from this city.
Left to right: Kenny Carroll, Brendan O’Brien, Club President, Eoin Barron, Patrick Duffy, Rachit Gaur and Dharm Singh.
Photo: Elaine Coburn.
The young players are not the only players from the Club currently abroad as both Niall O’Brien and Kevin O’Brien are with the Irish team that are currently in Australia and Abu Dhabi, practising and playing matches in the run-up to Ireland’s participation in the World T20 Cup taking place in India in March. The Nissan Cup for this competition was recently displayed in Ireland and our photograph shows Kevin bringing it to Railway Union. We wish them every success along with Railway Union hockey players Isobel (Captain) and Cecelia Joyce who will be playing in the Women’s T20 Cup that takes place at the same time in India.
The 2016 Railway Union Cricket Annual is currently being put together. This is the ninth year of publication and as always it will contain details of fixtures for the season, records from 2015 and an array of appealing articles and photographs that will interest all sports enthusiasts.
Businesses in the Dublin 4 area who wish to advertise their products or services in the Annual are invited to contact David Carroll at 086 852 0582 or davidpcarroll1@gmail.com to be included. Families or individual supporters of the Club can also ‘purchase a bat’ in the Annual and will have their name and message of support included.
