Fully Committed Lightning Please Coach Trent Johnston With Superb Win Over Northern Knights

Leinster Lightning's Coach Trent Johnston was full of praise for his talented team after their win at home to the Northern Knights. He also had a special mention for Chris Dougherty who batted brilliantly for the Knights. Johnston was full of praise for the commitment of his players, and thanked their Clubs for their help in making his life as Lightning Coach easier.

Barry Chambers: Trent you must be pretty satisfied with that, and your perfect performance I would suggest?

Trent Johnston:  Yeah, obviously it was great that the rain held off to give us a chance to get that last wicket. It would have been nice to do it last night. But I suppose to get that amount of wickets we did on Day 2 on that wicket was pretty good. I think that we sort of played pretty well from the get go on Day 1. To get 360 on that wicket first up and have the Knights 2 for 20 was pretty impressive.

Very happy with all our guys, the way they contributed. I think everyone contributed to the win. I think special mentions got to go to Chris Dougherty, his two innings were outstanding, and you've probably got a readymade replacement there if `Shanno' (James Shannon) can't get on the plane to go to Holland. So you know it's good that someone could dig in, and you know he sort of knew what he had to do, and picked his balls where he was going to hit, and everything else was sort of let go or played straight down the ground. So I thought he played outstanding.

Barry Chambers: It must be a pretty easy job for Kevin, he's got may be seven or eight internationals in there, the Lightning bat all the way down to eleven, and plenty of bowling options?

Trent Johnston: Ah yeah, you've still got to get out there and sort of score the runs and take the wickets. You know they've got a few internationals in their team and the North West Warriors, I think have probably got the best bowling team in the completion, if they get everyone out. So you know we're quite lucky that we have good depth, you know, Max Sorenson bats four for The Hills and batted eleven here today. So we're lucky in that aspect, but we've still got to get out there and take twenty wickets, and get 360 runs. So you know, it's pretty pleasing to come away with our first win.

Barry Chambers: What do you think, there's been a bit of criticism of the Northern Teams in the competition, I mean you seem to be head and shoulders above them, what's your thoughts on that, should they maybe amalgamate or should the Lightning be divided into two, or is it up to them to come up to your standard?

Trent Johnston: I don't know, I think that we have a pretty simple game plan and we go out and play. We don't like to overcomplicate it, but I think we do have a game plan. Maybe that might be something that they need to sort of have a look at. I don't think we should be divided in two. I think Munster is the obvious choice if we are to get number four in. Maybe there might be a few of our players go down there and strengthen them up for a few years. I just think it's got to come down to commitment from the Northern Teams.

You know it's difficult, I can understand guys taking time off work and those sorts of things, and y it's hard, there's probably not the money in the Three Day Game or the Interprovincial setup at the moment, that players would like, but that will come. I just think that they have to sort of knuckle down.

The carrot is dangled in front of them to perform well here, you'll play for Ireland. And if you play for Ireland, it could be your full time job. So Max Sorenson did that last year. He trained with us all winter, you know, and got a Category A contract. So there's certainly, you know, the powers above are not afraid to make a decision like that if you put the hard work in, but I think that hard work has to be put in.

The guys do that down here, you know, we're probably lucky with our clubs, we get a certain amount of freedom with our players. We've had about seven or eight training sessions on a Wednesday now, no Club has come up to me or rang me and said, listen I want my player to do this that or the other. So we've pretty much got the full support of the Clubs around here. So that certainly helps.

And the guys are committed, you know, take me out of the squad there's twenty one guys that want to play for the Leinster Lightning. And I think that certainly helps. They can see what light is at the end of the tunnel. So maybe that just sort of needs to be spread through the other two Unions.