A SUPERB undefeated century by Andrew Poynter gave Leinster Lightning their second trophy of the season as they clinched the Newstalk inter-provincial Cup with a game to spare.

Poynter scored 123 not out against Northern Knights at The Lawn and that the next best score, in a total of 254 for nine, was Kevin O'Brien's 34, only underlined how indebted the Lightning side were to the Ireland international who will be named this morning in the 18-man squad which leaves for Australia and New Zealand next week. No other visiting batman passed 15.

The Clontarf batsman, who has comfortably surpassed 1,000 runs for the season, added nine fours and six sixes to his boundary tally yesterday in a wonderful 111-ball exhibition which contained only one chance, in the final over, when he had already 114 to his name.

Knights, to their credit, were up with the run-rate throughout their reply, on an excellent pitch, but after Chris Dougherty and Nigel Jones had given them the perfect start, with an stand of 62 in 52 balls, the next best partnership was 34 and not one could complete eight overs together.

The most encouraging innings was by James McCollum, the youngest member of the team, who maintained the early momentum with an unbeaten 37 in 51 balls, but he ran out of partners and the not so young Lightning debutant Yaqoob Ali finished the innings in the 44th over with Knights still 47 runs short.

The teams meet again on Saturday at Rathmines in the final match of the season, when John Mooney will receive the trophy.