Despite a new spate of North West-bashing in certain quarters of late the local Union had plenty to celebrate at Friday night's CricketIreland presentation evening when bringing a trio of top awards back across the Aughnacloy border. Stuart Thompson picked up the "emerging player" award and despite a fairly unspectacular club season at Limavady, there seems little doubt that the all-rounder is held in high regard by the National selectors. Johnny Thompson was a fitting winner of the Club Player of the Year award after a superb season with Brigade and was joined in that shortlist by father and son pairing of Junior and Andy McBrine. Those two had played a pivotal role in Donemana's all conquering summer and it was little surprise that the Holm side won the Team of the Year category making it a night to remember for the local region.

While the negativity seems to be stemming from individuals who couldn't point to the North West on a map, they seem to have coveniently forgotten that the region is holding its own despite being dwarfed numerically in terms of populous (and consequently the numbers playing the sport) in other regions. What the comments have done however is raised what was an already elevated bar ahead of next year's three-way Inter-Provincial series. While all the details have yet to be confirmed we do know that Leinster, the NCU and the North West will be locking horns in a T20, 50-over and three day series with all teams playing each other home and away.

The T20 competition is likely to be played over a couple of weekends while the 50-over competition will also be played on weekends but will obviously take a little longer and the 3-day competition will probably be pencilled in for midweek. CricketIreland are believed to have secured TAPP funding in the region of £700,000 for the series which is expected to be divided up among the Unions and used for things like accommodation, equipment, coaching, marketing, ground hire and expenses for players and officials. Under the expert eye of Bobby Rao, Development has been very high on the North West agenda in recent times and Bobby along with Brian Allen and a team of coaches are confident that they will be ready for the challenge.

Naturally there will also be an opportunity for local clubs to showcase their ability to host these games, an area in which the North West is second to no-one on the island. On the playing front there is little doubt that the more seasoned hands could easily still do a job at this level but it would be something of a surprise if selectors didn't opt to blend youth and experience. Perhaps, county committments nowithstanding, the likes of William Porterfield and Boyd Rankin would be added to Johnny Thompson, Andy Britton, Nial McDonnell, David Rankin, Phil Eaglestone, Chris Dougherty (he's ours by the way), Andy McBrine, Stuart Thompson, Ryan Hunter, Scott Campbell with the experience of maybe an Iftikhar Hussain or a David Cooke thrown into the mix. It's only guesswork at this stage of course but either way the prospect of a fully fledged Inter-Pro series can definitely help to shorten the winter.

Away from that, the league re-structuring for next season has now been all but ratified with the make up of the Qualifying League in particular the subject of much discussion. We had known for some time that the new Premier League and Championship would both consist of 8 teams but the Operations Committee have now agreed that there will be three tiers below that from 2013 with each consisting of 12 teams. The Qualifying League will be made up of second XI's from Brigade, Bready, Donemana, Coleraine, Fox Lodge, Strabane and Eglinton as well as first X1's from Newbuildings, The Nedd, North Fermanagh, Ballyspallen and Killyclooney. T

en North West teams are invited to take part in the Bob Kerr Irish Senior Cup and the 8 Premier teams will be joined by Glendermott and Bonds Glen. Newbuildings and Killyclooney will be added to the remaining six Championship teams in the RSA National Cup and the former will also take Drummond's place in the Ulster Shield as the Roe Valley side don't play Sunday cricket. The three 12 team leagues has caused some debate not least because of the number of games each team has to play but time will tell if further tweaks are required going forward. The Qualifying League sides look set to be extremely busy, particularly since 20-over replays are to be replaced by full 50-over matches so there are likely to be few complaints this season of not enough cricket.