Johnston Delighted with Victory But Challenges His Batters to Come to the Table From Here On In

Leinster Lighting Coach Trent Johnston agreed that his team's win can be chalked down to the last wicket partnership yesterday between Malahide's Fintan McAllister and Max Sorenson of The Hills.

Describing his teams batting as `shambolic' at times Johnston hinted there would be a lot of hard work in the nets to come for the Lightning batters.

He also urged other young players around Leinster to take heed and bat their way into contention for the Lightning.

On the bowling and fielding front however, Johnston was fulsome in his praise for his team. On a bowling friendly pitch his experienced bowling line up, backed by some excellent fielding, stood tall and took the 20 wickets required to win.

Johnston was also full of praise for the North West Warriors bowling and fielding which saw them going very close to defending 62 in the final innings.

Barry Chambers: Trent a bit of a strange game, but you've got the win?

Trent Johnston: Got the win yes, so I think we owe it up to Fintan and Max for their performance with the bat yesterday, a 90 run partnership.

That gave us that little bit of momentum going into yesterday afternoon, and the bowlers certainly bowled a lot better than what we did in the first innings. And then there was a bit of Squeaky Bum time, I suppose, at the back end of that.

The Warriors came out and bowled pretty well. Our batting at times was shambolic, so it's something we've got to work on, something we've just spoken about in the changing room.

Barry Chambers: Why was it so poor, when you've got such a strong batting line up. I mean you could turn that batting order upside down. I see Ger Siggins had said, everybody has got a senior hundred in the last two years. but they didn't show it out there did they, apart from Fintan and Max?

Trent Johnston: Yeah Fintan and Max, I suppose the wicket probably got a little bit better yesterday afternoon. You can't take anything away, Craig Young bowled very well. Their pro obviously is a quality player, he has 350 first class wickets. So he's certainly not going to be a mug on that sort of wicket.

I don't know, I think probably a bit of scoreboard watching, we're probably trying to leave too many balls. I think we've got to be a little bit more aggressive. That's the way we set out our stall last year, was to be aggressive. And we probably weren't that this year, we were probably a bit more cautious. So we've spoken about that.

But it's only the first game of the season. To be honest the wicket wasn't great. So it certainly got better as the game went on, and their Spinners bowled well. When you've got a total like that you either get it 1 down, or you generally get it 6 or 7 down. So and unfortunately it went for the latter for us today.

But listen a lot of positives. A lot of guys back in Leinster Cricket should be looking at this result and saying, you know, they've got an opportunity to play for Leinster Lightning this year, because the boys here so far, batting wise, haven't really stood up. 

I've always said that even though we have a squad of 20, if you're scoring runs on a consistent basis at club level, you're going to come in front of the selectors eyes. So, if I'm a young batter down in Leinster at the moment, and you've got three of four games before the next team is selected, get out there and get some runs and put your name up in front of us.

Barry Chambers: You're a wee bit critical of the batsmen, but the bowlers, you couldn't be critical of John Mooney, Eddie Richardson, Max Sorenson, fantastic the three of them?

Trent Johnston: No, they were great, Max is getting back to somewhere near his best, , he's probably still a little bit inconsistent, we're working on a few things.

`Richo' is just on that nagging length. John Boy since he has taken over the captaincy, he wants to lead from the front and do everything that he possibly can. So that's the sort of cricketer he is.

That's the best we've fielded in the Interprovincial Series so far, even going back last year. So Ben Ackland and Kevin with sort of innings changing catches there, which makes a big difference.

We were spilling them last year, and instead of getting 10 wickets, we were having to get 13 or 14. So when you've only got to get 20 wickets it's a hell of a lot easier for our guys. So when you've got an experienced bowling attack like that, on a wicket like this, you expect to bowl teams out for what we did. So to come up here, and with the weather around, and to walk away with, I don't know what we got, 22 points or something like that, so we're happy.

Barry Chambers: What about the North West Warriors, maybe just a word about them, have you noticed a difference in them from last year?

Trent Johnston: Well they've still got a very good bowling attack. I don't know I think that maybe the left hand pro could have got up top in the first innings and batted, instead of batting seven, I don't know what the thoughts were there. That's something that Bobby and his team have to come up with those plans. Craig Young, Thommo, Riddles and Andy McBrien, they're if not the best bowling attack in the competition, they go very close to it.

So they've just got to get some runs from somewhere, and they've got a bowling attack that could defend. You know they almost defended sixty odd out there today. So it's very good, their fielding is very good, and I just think that they need a bit of luck. They're going to get close and they're going to win a few games this year, like they did last year.

Barry Chambers: It's been a great series hasn't it, sort of two years that it's been running now. And that fact that there's a World Cup coming up, a lot of players playing for places, gives it that extra competitive edge.

Trent Johnston: It's great, the whole thing was set up to close that gap between club and international cricket. Eddie Richardson, Craig Young, Andy McBrine, all played for Ireland last year, basically because of this, because of the Interprovincial cricket. So it's doing its job. So if we produce three new international cricketers a year, it's happy days.

You know it puts pressure on `Simmo' and the selectors. It puts pressure on the guys that are in the squad at the moment, to know that they've got to perform, because if the guys down at this level are performing, they are going to given the opportunities.

So, the Interprovincial stuff is great. I just think that everything else around, the players and everything like that, needs to rise as well. And when that does, I think we'll have a pretty good system here.