So far this season the 5th XI have been the club's most travelled side having covered at least half of the pages in The Lonely Planet's Guide of Ireland. Last Sunday however was a different type of journey for us as we travelled back in time to play a cricket  match in what felt like a visit to WG Grace's back garden, think the cricket match in Series 2 of Downton Abbey and you will have a fairly good idea of what Halverstown 1st XI V Malahide 5ths looked like. For first time visitors like myself, Halverstown's ground took some finding, remote doesn't even come into it, if Lord Lucan had been riding around the outfield on Shergar it wouldn't have been that surprising. On a beautiful sunny afternoon the ground looked a picture, OK the pitch is a mat in a meadow, the "pavillion" is a wooden hut and the toilet facillities are more 4th world than 3rd world but it really is a great place to play cricket. We won the toss and decided to have a bowl (at the time I didn't realise that Conor O'Donohue's car together with 3 of our players was still several counties away and hopelessly lost) so it took us about 5 or 6 overs to settle into the game by which time the Halverstown batsmen had already explored the boundaries on a number of occassions, but after assisting our opponents in getting off to a "flyer" the bowling improved considerably and Sean O'Donohue and Mark O'Hara began to consistently beat the bat. We managed to send Halverstown's top 3 back to the "hutch" reasonably quickly (a run out and 2 wickets for Sean) but their 4th wicket pair settled in for the long haul and set about accumulating runs. We rotated the bowling regularly , Alex Hallows and David O'Halloran both bowled excellent spells, Richard Hallows and Mark Smith both "twirled away" and Steve Twadell rolled back the years with a few overs but we couldn't break the partnership. David eventually made the breakthrough when he forced a false shot which was well caught by Mark Smith on the square leg boundary but by the Halverstown were well on their way to setting a target of around the 200 mark in their 40 overs, eventually finishing on 201 for 4.
We have had enough experience this season of playing on grounds where the grass on the outfield has been longer than is ideal so we knew that a target of 202 would be an extremely difficult chase....and so it proved. Adding to the challenge were the nuances of the ground (which The Halverston players knew how to exploit) where balls going down hill seemed to stop and where those going uphill seemed to speed up. Openers Dave Symmons and Mark Smith made a steady  start but with very little pace to work with they had to work hard for every run. The opening partnership passed the 50 mark before Mark was bowled for 27, Dave Symmons batted very well for his 30 before he too was bowled . Richard Hallows came and went leaving David O'Halloran (14 runs) and Riley Shoebridge (20) to re-build the innings, both had batted really well the day before and in much more testing circumstances they again looked  in good form. However, the home team had great local knowledge and a combination of the long grass and canny field placings meant that Malahide were strauggling to keep up with the run rate. By the time we had run out of overs and lost a few wickets in the last over we had reached 140 for 8, 62 runs short. This was another great learning experience for the younger players who all seem to be getting stronger by the week. Of course a win would have been better but a beautiful day in one of Leinster Cricket's most picturesque locations made it a Sunday to remember.

Malahide Team: Dave Symmons, Mark Smith, David O'Halloran, Richard Hallows, Riley Shoebridge , Mark O'Hara, Steve Twadell, Glynn Higgins, Alex Hallows, Sean O'Donohue & Mike Shoebridge

Looking forward to Going Back To The Future against North County next weekend.