Railway Union celebrated promotion to Section A of next season's Leinster Senior League with a record-breaking 63-run defeat of North County at The Nevitt yesterday. Union had secured promotion with an eight-wicket victory over Rush at Kenure on Saturday.
Jason and Rodney Molins shared an unbeaten third wicket stand of 221 to set a new record in League cricket in Leinster. Their partnership is also thought to be a new record for a father and son, at least in Leinster League cricket.
Jason's undefeated 171 - 175 deliveries, 21 fours, six sixes - was 13 runs short of the club record of 184 established by Noel Fitzsimons in a Senior Cup match way back in 1961.
For the record (as it were) Rodney's superb unbeaten knock of 75 was scored off 86 balls and included 13 fours.
Set a daunting target of 297 to win, North County, whose hopes of snaffling the second promotion spot vanished when they lost on Saturday, began well, Craig Fittler and Dara Armstrong putting on 114 for the first wicket. But John Andrews (34) and Conor Armstrong were the only other batsmen to make significant scores, and Railway won with three overs to spare.
Another Molins combination did well this time around with Rodney rowing in with three wickets, backed up by Greg with two. Talk about keeping it in the family.
Clontarf held their top position in the section with a 43-run defeat of Leinster at Castle Avenue on Saturday.
Cycling: The last of four events in the classic league, the Matt Corcoran memorial race at Naas, was held yesterday and was won by under-23 champion David McQuaid, writes Jim McArdle. Eugene Moriarty was second but by finishing third Brian Kenneally clinched first place in the league again.
A group of 20 from the field of 92 went ahead on the first of three 20mile laps around by Ballymore Eustace and Blessington. The most notable absentees were Mark Scanlon, Tommy Evans, Ciaran Power and David McCann.
The leading bunch leaders were down to 16 next time around and they had an advantage of almost three minutes. Going into the final phase of three times around the Punchestown circuit of six miles, seven riders were clear - McQuaid, Moriarty, Kenneally, Paddy Moriarty, Ian Chivers, Sean Bracken and Kenneally, the latter the only threat to David O'Loughlin's lead.
McQuaid and Eugene Moriarty forged ahead with 12 miles to go and were 15 seconds clear on the last lap. The pair continued to pull away and at the finish McQuaid sprinted past Moriarty for another good win with Kenneally at the head of the rest 49 seconds in arrears but having done enough to take the title.
Scanlon, McCann and Evans went in pursuit of the leaders on the shorter circuit, with Scanlon finishing ninth at 5:45 and Evans 10th.
McQuaid returns to his Italian team, near Verona, next Monday after the Tour of the Peaks in Derbyshire on Sunday.
Athletics: Noah Ngeny of Kenya broke Sebastian Coe's 18-year-old world best for the 1,000 metres - the oldest world record in men's track athletics - at a Grand Prix meeting yesterday. Ngeny, silver medallist over 1,500 metres at last month's world championships, ran two minutes 11.96 seconds to shave 0.22 seconds off Coe's record in the little-run distance.
