ARDMORE

It turned out to be a strange sort of season for the Bleachgreen boys as they fairly hit the ground running at the start of the campaign before getting themselves into an awful tangle at the halfway stage.

The stats will show that George Brolly's side finished their league campaign in third spot having recorded 8 wins but that only tells half the story as Ardmore won their first five league matches on the spin.

July was always going to be a testing month but with a clear lead in the title race, few expected the wheels to come they way they did. Creevedonnell were the first side to take points off the Bleachgreen team, that despite an Adrian Murphy century from the hosts and although they recovered to beat Sion Mills the next day, courtesy of another Murphy "ton", that was to be their only victory in the month.

The cup competitions came and went too but Ardmore hung on in until the latter stages of the promotion chase before a second, killer defeat by the eventual champions.

There were some decent performances; Mark Chambers and Conor Brolly making good progress but the batting was dominated almost exclusively by Murphy. The West Indian scored a massive 1115 runs at an average just fractions short of 75 and his impressive list included 4 hundreds and 7 fifties. Paul Brolly was the only other player to pass the qualifying mark, the opener contributing a healthy 466 runs at 23 a time.

The bowling wasn't bad; Lee Brolly's 35 wickets coming at just over 15 runs apiece with George Brolly (28), Paul (22) and Conor (20) all chipping in useful performances.

Given the start they made it's fair to assume that Ardmore will feel they under-performed in the second half but with much of the squad likely to be available again next time you would expect them to be in there pitching at the business end once more.

BATTING

A Murphy 21-6-1115-74.33- 4x100 7x50
P Brolly 21-1-466-23.3-2x50

BOWLING

L Brolly 115-10-530-35-15.14
Geo Brolly 113-8-570-28-20.36
P Brolly 85-5-448-22-20.36
C Brolly 100-8-410-20-20.5