The wife and I returned to Dublin on Friday evening having ‘done' Yorkshire: the star attraction was Burton Agnes, an Elizabethan manor house with an excellent art collection (European 17th century to modern), and some contemporary local art for sale. Don't ask: £425!

My first choice for a necessarily cheap weekend was the Bob Kerr Irish Senior Cup match at Kenure between Rush and Clontarf. The Bull's Meadow men won the toss, batted, and struggled against some searching new ball bowling from Saadat Gull and Nazeer Shaukat.

Naz quickly tempted Eoghan Delany to spar to gully a lifter leaving him: Shahid Iqbal took the catch. Ropu Islam hardly justified his promotion to no. 3, but with Dom Rigby battled to see off Gull.

Life seemed easier as Dan van Zyl drifted his straightbreaks to leg, and Eoin Conway let a firm push by Islam through his legs for four. Another leg side pie was intercepted by Conway without hitting the deck. 'Look mum, no hands!' Islam 14, and 36/2 in the 11th over.

Alex Cusack joined Rigby, and the two batted very well against a ball that Nazeer and Shahid were still wobbling a little. They were beginning to pick up the pace when a heavy shower interrupted play with ‘Tarf on 107/2 off 22.5 overs.

After the break, which cost no overs, Niall Mullen brought himself into the attack. His first five balls were done from memory, but his sixth was a beauty, forcing Cusack, 45 off 41 balls, to nick it low to Fintan McAllister's right.

Andrew Poynter didn't trouble the scorer or the umpire as he was surprised by a straight one. Greg Molins (13) survived a tough chance to McAllister and then tried one biff too many to be well taken at deep mid off by Chris Carthy. The skipper had a three-for and Clontarf were 138/5.

Rigby and Ronan O'Reilly kept the scoreboard moving but never dominated. Dom pulled a short one from Keegan Clarke to mid wicket, where Lionel Jansen thrust up a hand, and to everyone's surprise the ball stuck. The disbelieving Rigby had to go for 74 off 95 deliveries.

Rashers O'Reilly improvised well to put together partnerships with Joe Morrissey (14 - very good catch by Finto) and Richard Forrest (18*), but eventually holed out to cover for 46 off 48 deliveries. The 50 over total was 247/9, 40 short of a testing target.

For the Russians, Gull bowled 8 overs for 30 runs, Nazeer took 1/49 off 10, van Zyl 1/42 off 10, Shahid 3/53 off 9, Mullen 3/31 off 6 and Clarke 1/29 off 6, all tidy stuff.

Dan van Zyl wasn't as combative as usual, but he and McAllister took the score to 48, when Dan got into a mess with a thinly disguised straight one from Cusack, and one run later Gull lobbed a lifter from Morrissey into the gully, where Cusack showboated with a swallow-dive of a catch.

Nazeer brought out the long handle, but on 20 under-clubbed to be taken by Conor D'Arcy on the mid wicket boundary. Shahid settled in straight away, and with McAllister tucking the ball beautifully off his legs, the pair added 97 uncomplicated runs against increasingly ragged bowling.

The score was 198 when McAllister lost concentration and nicked off, a dozen runs short of a well-deserved ton. Eighteen runs later Shahid flat-batted a catch to D'Arcy for 57 off 43 balls, and five runs on Clarke was bowled.

221/6 was as good as it got for ‘Tarf. Lionel Jensen (22*) and Niall Mullen (8*) saw Rush home in the 43rd over. Joe Morrissey took 2/47 off his 10 overs, and fifth change Conor D'Arcy 2/19 off 6: the other bowling figures are best forgotten, as are most of the 35 extras.

Rush had home advantage, and got the breaks (the shower, the Jansen catch). Clontarf were below par, and even if they had got the catch behind they claimed when Finto was 49 (a regular Sydney Parade Male Voice Choir job, teapots and all), I think Rush would still have got home.

McAllister got the Fingal County Council man-of-the match award for his 88 off 116 balls and two good catches. Clontarf join North Down in the try-again-next-year out-tray. If the Comber side had only played that old bloke whose name I can't remember, things might have been so different. Dan Dare? Yogi Bear?

Sunday was the coldest day of the year so far, much too cold for anything to grow, thus rendering redundant the sponsors of the 45-over competition, Dublin Grass Machinery. But Stan Mitchell was there, showing off his John Deeres.

Matt Dwyer had no need of such new-fangled devices: his Milverton pitch was its usual manicured perfection, with just a designer stubble off grass. The rest of the Vineyard ground was beautifully presented, and my prediction for the DGM Final was spot on - Mrs. Clinton's jam scones were mouth-watering.

Unfancied Pembroke won the toss and elected to bat. Jono Cooke and Andrew Balbirnie made a cautious start against North County's Denver D'Cruz and André Botha (plus a Reinhardt Strydom over to allow them to change ends, one of which is cryptically called the ‘school' end - the school is the far side of Joey Archer's field).

Balbirnie (15) was bowled by Botha with the score on 31, when Rick Francis joined Cooke. After a couple of good shots, Francis (19) was suckered by Edward Richardson into hoiking a long hop into Ciaran Garry's hands on the square leg boundary.

Theo Lawson pottered around for a while as Cooke began to get on with it. But in a moment of madness, Cooke, on 35, charged down the wicket to Richie Lawrence's innocuous off breaks, aimed for the rookery and was stumped by a country mile.

Graham McDonnell joined Lawson, and tried to target Lawrence's short leg side boundary with some success. But Dwayne Harper was keeping things tight from the ‘school' end (it must have been the Chink who called it that!), preventing a 30-over score of 124/3 from being converted to a challenging 230.

Both Pembroke youngsters reached creditable and stylish fifties, but each perished trying to force the returning opening bowlers, McDonnell for 51 and Lawson for 62. When you need quick runs against good bowling, you wouldn't choose Brian O'Rourke and Joe Byrne for the task.

You know they won't get out, and they didn't until a 'Yes, no, wait, sorry' interlude on the last ball. Pembroke finished on 207/6 off their 45 overs. For County, Botha took 2/30 off 8 overs, Strydom 0/15 off 6, Lawrence 1/43 off 9 and Harper 0/30 off 9.

The ‘Broke were going to have to bowl County out to win the match, and they got off to a good start. Conor Armstrong walloped the first ball for four and the third straight to Balbirnie at point. The first time he moved his feet was to walk off.

Brian Shields poked around for 7 before edging Bill Whalley to Lawson behind the stumps. We then had a partnership between two of the growing band of Afrikaans-speaking Irishmen, as André Botha joined Reinhardt Strydom. ‘Rainy' played most of the shots as they took the score to 66, when he flashed at Graham McDonnell and was caught behind for 34.

A few overs later, Jono Cooke got his revenge on Richie Lawrence (13), Theo Lawson removing the bails in the absence of the batsman. If 100/4 wasn't a crisis, one ball later 100/5 was. Adrian Murphy picked out the scout lurking under the rookery, and Andrew Balbirnie did the needful.

Dara Armstrong looked as if he hadn't held a bat since 2006 (probably the last time he needed to make a score) and once he had worked out that you hold the thin bit and try to hit the red round thing with the thick bit, it quickly came back to him that this could be fun.

He clubbed 34 (including a couple of well-timed straight drives) before being bowled by Peter Byrne, who was so surprised that he didn't appeal. Next in was Ciaran Garry, with 55 still needed off 11 overs.

All this time Botha had been content to work the ball around and let his mates get the runs. He now took over, passing fifty off 80 deliveries (very slow for Boats), and just couldn't be bowled at. This took the pressure off Garry, who helped himself as the Pembroke bowlers became increasingly desperate for a breakthrough.

The target was passed off the first ball of the 42nd over, with Botha on 77* and Garry on 25*. Only Balbirnie (0/21 off 9) and Cooke (2/42 off 9) exercised sufficient control for Pembroke. They won't have to deal with Man-of-the-Match André for another year, and they can be pleased with their performance: they made the best team in the country work hard for their win.

I've been invited to deepest, darkest Co. Wicklow next Sunday, but I think I'll pass on the lashings of hospitality. To save on petrol, the wife can drive me in her 988 c.c. Micra to Merrion v Rush, although I doubt she'd be willing to ferry me to and from Cabra for the match of the day between Belvo 2s and Balbriggan!