The Div 5 season marches on and the Malahide 3s legends eleven take on Railway union 3s with an appearance on the main pitch in the village. A blustery overcast day didn't dim the spirits of the home side as we attempted to continue our resurgence in the league after the previous weeks no result vs Mullingar. With the mysterious and sudden disappearance of skipper Richard Brown to parts foreign, always when there is a major world crisis does he do this, the team was led by Ronan McGeehan brandishing the spirit of il duce himself. Just like that Italian leader of yesteryear, Ronan wasn't in any mood to take prisoners and told the team what he expected, nothing short of victory would suffice. So unfazed by losing the toss we took to the field to bowl to the visitors. Opening the bowling were the oldest opening bowling combo of Gibbons and Askew with a combined age of 94. After the first 4 patchy overs it seemed like they might go for 94 but there's a reason old men like this are still handed the new ball and sure enough the wily Howard saw off the hitting opening batsman with the help of a fine long off catch from James Garrigan. This changed the next 14 overs of the innings as the maidens piled up and Howard saw off the number 3 lefthander who showed no respect for experience and was caught smartly by Hamish Manks after facing only 2 deliveries. The openers bowled out their 18 overs and the score had been restricted to 49 for 2. This brought on the bowling combo of Manks and Bob "the rage" Chambers. It took the two new bowlers a few overs to get going and the run rate began to creep up again as Ger O' Brien played a fine innings for his 57. Manks was not to be denied and smelled wickets finishing with 3 for 20 from his 8 overs. 'Our Gary' as he is 'very' fondly known by the absent skipper joined the fray and bowled at the tough end of the innings as Railway switched to T20 mode. He battled hard against this onslaught and took 4 for 65 in 8.4. Mention must also be made to Dickie Wing's fine catch at wide fine leg off the bowling of 'the rage' despite the constant distractions of Frosty bending his ear about his own fine playing career but thats a story for another day. So Railway were dismissed in the 44th over for 190.

After another satisfying tea we set about our chase with Manks and Stewart. A steady start was ended when Gary was adjudged lbw with the score on 24. This brought Riley to the crease sporting a helmet that he can't have been happy with as it was ruining his wonderfully coiffed hair. Riley played confidently and looked to be in no trouble until a leading edge defeated him on 21. Have no fear as this only brought the innings destroyer Dickie Wing to the wicket. Dickie was in no mood to put up with any shenanigans and passed 50 before Hamish could shout yes to an obvious run out. The two boys batted superbly for an undefeated 144 run partnership to bring home the victory with Dickie 81* and Hamish 62*. A fine team performance bolstered by 3 catches from Jimmy "old before his time" Garrigan and the return of the winning belief in all the players.

Next up are Terenure on saturday so watch this space.