On Saturday morning a cool northwest breeze brought in a queue of showers, most light, most brief. At Rathmines Rush won the toss and asked Leinster to bat first in their Bob Kerr Irish Senior Cup replay.

Mark Jones gave an inkling of what was to follow when he top-edged Gull's first ball, a long hop outside leg stump, to square leg. A few overs later, Keeley Todd drove a half volley from Nazeer straight into the midriff of Lionel Jansen at short mid on.

Anton Scholtz and Craig Mallon had to steady the ship, and did so with great skill and no little patience on a pitch with variable bounce through a couple of rain breaks against searching bowling from the three amigos, Gull, Nazeer and Shahid.

Scholtz broke the shackles with a lovely straight drive off the back foot from Niall Mullen's bowling, but rode his luck when he slogged the next ball over extra cover. A third shower stopped play after Scholtz had reached a classy fifty and the pair had put on a hundred.

On resumption of play, still with no loss of overs, Lionel Jansen was introduced from the Rathmines end to purvey his rollers. Craig Mallon, on 37, lost his concentration and his bearings, and was smartly stumped by McAllister, to make it 112/3.

The question of Leinster is always ‘When is the collapse coming?' The Jansen rollers were getting plenty of purchase from the pitch, and JP O'Dwyer watched one turn from outside off stump past leg: he gave the umpire an old-fashioned look when no wide was called.

He gave the umpire an even older-fashioned look three balls later when a ball pitching middle and offish hit him on the pads and up went the digit. If it was an arm ball, it was a beautifully disguised one. JP gone for 3 and 129/4.

Naz was back for his second spell, and skidded a short one onto Scholtz to have him lbw for 68, and 129/5. Jansen now brought one back from outside off to bowl Miley for 4, to make it 134/6. Well, that's the collapse sorted!

A fourth rain break reduced the match to one of 49 overs, and Ian O'Herlihy and Ken Taylor set about the Rush bowlers. O'Herlihy was in particularly good nick, and pulled one onto the roof of Taylor père's car.

There was more bad news for the Taylor family as Ken lost his middle stump swinging at Gull, out for 14 with the score on 183. Will Lennon and Gavin Gilmore quickly perished blazing at Shahid and Gull respectively to make it 192/9.

George Dockrell hung around as O'Herlihy swung at Gull's last over for a couple of sixes over wide mid on and a last ball drop at straight long on which was eventually given as a four. O'Herlihy's charge gave him 55* and Leinster 208/9.

Jansen recorded 3/29 off his ten overs, and Nazeer 2/24 off his. Gull (3/51) and Shahid (1/46) suffered late on after tidy first spells. I had thought that Anne had loaned the family brain cell to Ian, but the watching Michael O'Herlihy had it after tea when he spotted that the target of 209 needed to be adjusted. After D/L calculations, the target for Rush became 211 to win off 49 overs.

The Rush innings also got off to an inauspicious start. Keagan Clarke was so pleased to reach Gavin Gilmore's fourth delivery (the other three were wides) that he chipped it straight back and Gillie hung on to a good left-handed catch.

After McAllister had helped himself to one pie, with the score on 27 he stretched a long way forward to intercept a Gilmore delivery with his pad. It certainly wasn't going over the top, and the umpire decided it wasn't going round the side either.

Nazeer joined Gull and the pair helped themselves to the odd loose delivery from Gilmore, Will Lennon, and a couple of exploratory overs from George Dockrell. Then Nazeer, on 10, joined JP in the old-fashioned look club, and Gull (31) drove loosely and was bowled. Rush were 63/4 and Gillie had himself a Guildford Four-for.

Niall Mullen thought there was an easy second, but Shahid was happy with a single. The skipper gave yet another old-fashioned look, not at the umpire but at his colleague as he left the field muttering something ('how are we supposed to fashion a fantastic fictory when we're sixty-five for five?' - there were certainly some effs in it!).

Eoghan Conway and Shahid played nicely against Lennon and Keely Todd, until Conway (11) lost his middle stump and Shahid (14) nicked a lifter to the keeper, both off Todd. 89/7 was, to quote Sir Alec (Ferguson, not Bedser) ‘squeaky pants time'.

Leinster reckoned all they had to do was bowl, and three of 8, 9, 10 and J would eventually oblige. No. 8, Jansen, did his best, surviving a low chance to Mark Jones at slip off Todd, and a caught and bowled chance to Todd that was theatrically but unsuccessfully intercepted and juggled before it hit the deck.

No. 9, Wasim Akhtar, likes to hit the ball, and did just that. But he exceeded his usual quota of twenty and out. He dominated a century partnership with Jansen, and took a particular liking to Anton Scholtz's attempted darts.

Dockrell's reintroduction to the attack slowed things up a bit, but by this time Wasim was past his fifty and he and Jansen just had to bat the overs. A couple of shots had sailed perilously close to Mark Jones in the outfield, but steam coming out of Jonesey's ears was all that transpired as he stretched to no avail.

Todd finished his ten, and Rob Miley was introduced to the attack. Wasim had a tired slog, and there was no way Jonesey was dropping this one. 203/8, and a sniff for Leinster. The sniff became a snort when Roy Armstrong wafted Miley into the safe hands of Todd: 204/9.

Matt Sheridan had his nails bitten down past the quick as son Patrick fiddled around. The 48th over began with 6 to win. Jansen skipped down the pitch to Dockrell and missed the ball; but so did O'Herlihy and two byes were run. Three more singles were taken.

Miley now had to dismiss Jansen for no further run (or bowl a maiden) for the tie-break to come into operation. The first ball of the 49th over was steered through the gully for the winning single (they ran two, to be sure, to be sure, but one is all they got).

Gilmore finished with 4/35, Lennon 0/35, Dockrell 0/36 and Todd 2/37: tidy stuff. But the other 9.1 overs yielded 0/37 and Miley's 2/24.

Wasim scored 75, with five fours and four sixes. Jansen scored 36* to go with his Colombia Three-for and two catches. We shall never know who got Man of the Match, because there wasn't one. I would have given it to the fourth amigo, who has never been paid for playing cricket.

The wind on Sunday morning had backed into the southwest, but the clouds were much higher and more broken. It developed into a very fine day, particularly for Rush, who started their WKM Section A match with The Hills at Milverton at 11:30 to facilitate a schoolboy match afterwards.

Umpire Gordon Black gunned his good rugby buddy Dan van Zyl first ball, but after that first Fintan McAllister and then Tipu Gull tucked into the bowling of Max Sorenson and the brothers Clinton to take the score past 50 in the 15th over.

I left to drive down to the Inch, Balrothery, to welcome home four of the returning heroes of Rotterdam, Rainy, Boats, Poyntz and Cusie. The first three were there, but André didn't play, saving himself for Tuesday. Alec Cusack had taken ill on the return flight (obviously an Aer Lingus vomit comet) and had been confined to bed).

North County won the toss and elected to bat, just the first thing to go wrong. Clontarf opened the bowling with decent stuff from Joe Morrissey and Ewan Randall. Conor Armstrong (4) edged one from Randall through to Richard Forrest behind the stumps and stood around to no avail.

The pitch was stopping and the odd one lifting, not easy to bat on. Brian Shields (10) hit a couple of nice boundaries before nicking off. Rod Hokin then turned the game to ‘Tarf's advantage. First he caught and bowled Ritchie Lawrence for 10, then pulled off a superb catch.

Niall Delany bowled a half-tracker to a very subdued Reinhardt Strydom (16), who pulled it behind square to watch Hokin take off, grab the ball in his left hand, knock it up and catch it in his right behind his back as he fell. A sea-lion in Dublin Zoo clapped his flippers.

Adrian Murphy is having as much trouble as Dublin Airport with his radar, and picked out Randall on the long off boundary to make it 69/5. Mini Garry shaped up well, but fooled Marty Block into thinking he'd nicked it down the leg side to Forrest (serve him right for wearing a wooden thigh pad!).

Dara Armstrong also looked good until he chipped a wide one from Andrew Poynter to short third man. That was 100/7. Denver D'Cruz joined John Mooney, and two played tip and run to take the score to 130. Then the inevitable run out happened, D'Cruz gone for 13.

Eddie Richardson joined John Boy, and the two were in no trouble at all on a by now benign pitch. They took no chances, and gradually picked up the pace. John Boy began to find the boundary with drives regularly as he passed fifty.

In the last few overs some big shots came out, none better than John Boy's reverse sweep off Rod Hokin for six. He finished half a dozen short of what would have been a well-deserved ton with 10 fours and two sixes. Eddie Richardson made a very competent 29*, with County on 221/8 off their 50 overs.

For ‘Tarf, Morrissey took 1/35 off his 10 overs, Ewan Randall 1/40 off 9, Niall Delany 1/17 off 6, Rod Hokin 2/59 off 9, Andrew Poynter 2/24 off 7 and Eoghan Delany 0/42 off 9. There were 16 extras, 12 of which were wides.

The ‘Tarf innings started with Denver D'Cruz drawing Scottish blood. Dom Rigby completely lost sight of a shortish delivery and ducked into it, sconing himself. The first aid kit came out, and after a couple of deep-fried Mars bars to revive him, Rigby resumed.

D'Cruz didn't pitch too much up thereafter, and Rigby played one magnificent cover drive to one of the few deliveries in his half from a yard outside leg stump! No sooner than he seemed to have settled down, Rigby (16) nicked one from John Boy through to Dara Armstrong.

Rod Hokin took command as soon as he came in, allowing Eoghan Delany to come out of his shell and to play some nice off drives. Delany hasn't yet learned that when you bat with someone as good as Hokin, you respond to his every call. He didn't, and was needlessly run out for 30 and 79/2.

If County were going to win, they had to get rid of Hokin and Poynter as soon as possible. Their bowling after the openers wasn't good enough. There was no plan A, line and length on a flat track with the odd surprise ball, and nothing that resembled Plan B.

Hokin and Poynter batted properly, eschewing big shots, and ticked off the runs, 100, 150, 200. Hokin was increasingly having difficulty holding the bat properly, but had nevertheless reached 83 when he edged one onto his stumps with the score on 202.

With just a few runs to win, County set an umbrella field for Eddie Richardson, and Andrew Poynter succumbed to the inevitable short one, flapping it to mid off for a well-made 46. Richard Forrest edged the next ball to Dara Armstrong, but it was too late.

Joe Morrissey kept Bill Coghlan (11*) company as double nelson was reached in the 49th over. Mooney took 1/24 off his 10 overs, D'Cruz 1/47 off 10, Richardson 2/41 off 7 and Dwayne Harper 0/23 off 8 overs (three balls of which might have been on the stumps). The 36 extras contained 25 wides.

Clontarf fully deserved their win: they played proper cricket, and weren't made to miss the bedridden Cusack or the partying Greg Molins (sorry, I'll read that press release again, playing for an Invitation XI in Tel Aviv). County desperately missed André Botha, his batting, bowling, thinking, motivating.

The news had come through earlier that The Hills had received a right stuffing from Rush, so two sets of bruised egos have to do battle in the Vineyard on Tuesday for the right to play the Russians at home in the semi final of the Bob Kerr Irish Senior Cup on Saturday. Watch this space.