This weekend saw the start of the competitive action for the Men's 1st and 4th XIs and both sides got their respective league seasons underway with excellent victories. On Saturday, the 1st XI beat Dublin University (Trinity College Dublin) by 25 runs and gaining 42 points in this "double header". Batting first, Malahide looked in trouble at 80 for 5 but a superb partnership between debutant Michael Hingston (76) and Neil Boyne (48no) took the home side to a defendable total of 220 . Trinity initially seemed to be cruising but an excellent spell of spin bowling from Neil Boyne caused a mid innings collapse for the students. At 154 for 9 it looked all over for Trinity but a brilliant innings from Ireland U19 star , Lorcan Tucker (121 no) took the University to within 25 runs of victory. Trinity are a completely different proposition from last season and with Lorcan Tucker, George Dockrell, Matt Petrie (who has played 1st class cricket for Western Australia) and Isobel Joyce they will definitely take a lot of points from other sides in Division 2 so this was a great start for Malahide.

On Sunday, Dave Symmons' 4th XI took on Civil Service at the club (although the skipper was missing as he was still involved in some pre-season warm weather training !). Batting first, Civil Service were bowled out in a exceptional display with 2 wickets each for Howard Askew, Inder Singh and Alan Quinn and one a piece for Alex Davies and Conor Gibbons. After a few early alarms, Malahide chased down the total inside 20 overs with Conor Whelan (29 no) and SJ De Klerk (24) making the significant contributions.

All in all a very satisfying opening weekend for The Villagers.