DOMINANT DONEMANA MARCH ON

There’s no stopping the Donemana juggernaut at the minute as the Holm side reached the semi-finals of both the Faughan Valley and Senior Cups over the past week, beating Strabane by nine wickets and following that up with a professional seven-wicket win at Ardmore on Saturday.

The big games continue for the Tyrone side this weekend, as they take on Strabane in the Premiership, followed by an away day trip to Merrion in the Irish Senior Cup. Two huge games, but captain Gary McClintock goes into both matches boosted by having a full squad at his disposal.

“We certainly have a massive weekend of cricket with a match against Strabane - we want to continue our unbeaten start in that as well,” said McClintock.

“We have another away day trip to Merrion whom we played last year and got beat, but we have a very different side this year with big Dave O’Sullivan, a very good overseas professional in Anuj Jotin, and we have Andy McBrine also back this weekend which will help us massively.”

McBrine’s inclusion is good news for Donemana, as there was a school of thought that the all-rounder would be drafted into the Irish ranks for the T20I series against West Indies at Bready to increase local interest, but that hasn’t materialised. Indeed, their opponents Merrion look very likely to be without Stephen Doheny as there’s a blanket ban on T20 squad members playing club cricket this coming weekend.

Donemana caused the sensation of the first round and McClintock says that win means they will fear no-one in the blue riband tournament that they won for the only time in 2000.

“We went to Waringstown knowing we could cause an upset and just shows how good of a side that we are - especially our batting line-up as we can bat all the way to 11. We were missing Andy against Waringstown as well. Sam Huey filled in for him and did very well.

“We all know that Donemana hasn’t been where we want to be over the past few years but I honestly think with the side we have now there is no reason why we can’t cause another upset. We will certainly all be up for it as we have not done well in this cup for years.

“We are at full strength as William my brother looks to have recovered from his knee injury, and Dwayne has also recovered from his hamstring trouble which will be massive as he has bowled brilliantly for us this year - probably our best bowler. It will be a very tough match we know but we take massive confidence from the Waringstown game and we will give it our all on Sunday in Dublin.”