No.2
Irish Times Friday 30th October 1981
YMCA seek a total ban on all professional players…by Sean Pender
INCREASING concern over the manner in which imported professionals have dominated Dublin cricket, more so in the season just finished than ever before, is reflected in the current move to introduce legislation barring them from participation in next year’s competitions.
YMCA have tabled a motion for next month’s annual general meeting of the Leinster Cricket Union seeking a total ban on all professional players. And if statistics for 1981 are produced in arguing their case their proposal will be difficult to withstand.
Not only did overseas professional cricketers make a clean sweep last summer of all the individual awards available to Leinster cricketers - the ICU have just selected Merrion’s Australian David Robinson as the season’s outstanding all-rounder – but more importantly where bowlers were concerned, they denied young talent in this sphere the chance of establishing first team places, holding up their progress , maybe even discouraging them altogether from playing cricket.
BIG BONUSES
That’s the black side of the professional scene. There are also big bonuses to be gained from their employment in local cricket, particularly from the coaching they put when not playing for their club.
If clubs, when signing professional in the first place, put major emphasises on their man possessing top coaching qualifications and on ability to communicate with and tutor youngsters they will be on a winner ultimately. If on the other hand they pursue what some critically describe as “hired guns” they may win trophies that particular season but to maintain success they will have to have the same performer – or another of his ilk – back again the following season. Little or no coaching is being done and the future is left to look after itself.
It is in this area that I would hope a compromise can be agreed on. To ban professional players altogether would be to plunge Dublin cricket back into the dark ages. That’s how I would regard such a development. No one will convince me Robin Waters, in his 15-year involvement in Irish cricket has not contributed considerably towards improved standards in this country. Nor that Paul Whitehead did not work wonders in his first season in Munster cricket.
DOUBT OF NEW RULE
Happily, Waters, now permanently resident in this country, will be there again next season, no matter what decision in made by the ICU. But I would hate to think that any Dublin club, keen on having Whitehead for 1982, would be prevented by some new rule from acquiring his services.
What I would not object to at all is for the ICU to insist that in future any professional signed by a Dublin club must have a coaching diploma. Admittedly, even that might not guarantee that the professional would coach as well as play for his new club, but it would at least mean that he had the qualifications to do so (and why qualify as a coach if one doesn’t intend coaching?) and it would the be up to the club involved to ensure that they got full value for their money by seeing that their professional performed in a dual role.
To win the Samuels Cup for the top all-round performances of the season, Robinson beat off strong challenges from Marlon Tucker (CYM), Ian Burns (YMCA), Fintan Synnott and Alec O’Riordan (Old Belvedere), Alan Stimpson (Pembroke) and Gordon Black (Phoenix). Robinson scored 746 runs at an average of 39.26 and claimed 45 wickets at 14.73 runs apiece. In the all-rounders table Neville Daniels (Carlisle)scored more runs and only Stimpson took more wickets.