IT is difficult to know which cricketing memory of 2009 will stay with us the longest. For many it will be the pure exhilaration of watching Ireland beat Bangladesh in the World Twenty20 finals in England in June before giving Sri Lanka the mightiest of scares at Lord’s just a few days later.

Or perhaps it will be the moment when Eoin Morgan, once of Ireland but now very definitely on the world stage with England, prevented the country of his birth embarrassing the newly-crowned Ashes winners when he clawed back a seemingly certain Trent Johnston six in a dramatic final over at Stormont in August.

On the club scene we had an Irish Cup final which lived up to its billing as the biggest club match in Ireland – and how. For a second successive year the County Tyrone village of Donemana defied the odds in reaching the final, only to experience heartbreak once again.

A year after losing to all-conquering North County, Donemana had one hand on the trophy at The Hills only to be heartbreakingly edged out by Leinster in a match which will be talked about for years.

Donemana, who did win the North West Senior Cup, have unearthed a diamond in 16-year-old Andy McBrine, and their success is all the sweeter and all the more deserving because they develop their own players, an example clubs in both Ulster unions would do well to follow.

Unfortunately, one of the closest North West title races in years was undermined by its bitterly disappointing finale. We were just hours from a potentially enthralling title play-off between Limavady and Strabane when solicitors intervened and the decider was called off.

After a fortnight of sometimes bitter recrimination, common sense belatedly prevailed and it was agreed to share the title, an infinitely more satisfactory outcome than a prolonged – and expensive – courtroom battle which would have reflected badly on cricket.

The sour taste remains though and much like the Connell-gate NCU fiasco of 2006, lessons must be learnt in the North West after an episode everyone would rather forget.

In the NCU the talking points were thankfully about the action on the field – well at least the action that the miserable summer weather permitted us to have.

This really was the season of unpredictables. I began the summer anticipating a North Down clean sweep of domestic trophies and hadn’t changed my mind one iota when they lifted the Metal Technology Twenty20 Cup in early July and embarked on a winning run of 12 successive matches.

Already in the latter stages of the Challenge Cup and Ulster Cup and at the summit of the NCU Premier League, the big question was whether Peter Shields’ side could make history by winning four trophies.

Remarkably, they didn’t win another competition. Civil Service North, whose league hopes were irreparably undermined by a disastrous first two months, were the party-poopers in a breathtaking Ulster Cup final, and then the remainder of the season was all about Instonians and Waringstown.

For the first half of the summer, Waringstown in particular lurked in the shadows, talking down their league chances, and who could blame them with Kyle McCallan, Lee Nelson and James Hall among their regular absentees.

Instonians, perennial underachievers, were only outsiders at the beginning of the campaign but under Eugene Moleon and with an excellent crop of young players, they went on an admirable run which promised the historic double of Challenge Cup and outright Premier League champions until a last-day defeat at The Lawn.

A shared title was the right outcome, because Instonians played the most consistent cricket and Waringstown’s fighting spirit under Jonathan Bushe and their absolute determination to cultivate their own talent deserves to be rewarded. Bushe has now captained the villagers to three Premier League titles, a fine achievement in an era when only the misguided would deny that North Down have had the best panel of players to choose from.

North Down’s crushing eight-wicket Challenge Cup final defeat to Instonians left some to speculate about a new era at Comber, and while it’s hardly time for an overhaul of the most successful club of the decade, there are mistakes they can learn from.

They were too quick to jettison Jo Montgomery, excellent in 2008, from his opener's role and the previously prolific Ryan Haire was occasionally moved up and down the order to little effect. The occasional returns of Ralph Coetzee and Peter Connell yielded no rewards and Shields could do much worse than to reconstruct a middle order based around himself at number four.

Not that we can be too critical of a club whose ground served up the most consistently thrilling club cricket of 2009. It wasn’t so long ago that you simply couldn’t have envisaged an NCU team chasing down 250 in 40 overs, but Civil Service North did so with ease at The Green in the Ulster Cup final.

Instonians repeated the feat in the Challenge Cup final, when North Down would have assumed that a target of 190 in 30 overs should have been well beyond their opponents. Batting pitches at The Green should be the benchmark for the rest of the NCU.

Which brings me to my most memorable moment of 2009 - Instonians' Andrew White’s undisguised emotion as he crashed the winning boundary in the penultimate over of the Challenge Cup final at the home of his former club.

All in all, while there might have been plenty to frustrate us in 2009 – please let the rain stay away in 2010 - there was still much for the cricket lover to cherish.

Next summer promises much on all three fronts. Ireland's rise on the international stage should continue unabated while in the North West improving Bready, Strabane, Limavady and Donemana will all be vying for silverware.

In the NCU, North Down and CSN will inevitably come back stronger and the young players at Waringstown and Instonians can only improve.

Roll on 2010.