All Ireland Club Rankings

After far too many hours slaving away over spreadsheets, the All-Ireland Club rankings can be finally revealed. Based on the ICC's ODI rankings, the Irish equivalent will use all non-20 over competitions in the LCU, NWCU and NCU to reveal who's the best, who's challenging, and who should be doing better

So how do they work? The winner of each completed match (so abandoned matches or those where clubs have been awarded a walkover aren't included) is allocated a certain number of points, depending on the quality of the opposition - the higher the number of points the opposition has, the higher the number of points the winning team will get. Similarly a losing team will get less points if it loses to a weak team than if it loses to a strong team.In addition to this, games in the most recent 365 days contribute more to a team's ranking than those points won in older matches. If this makes it as clear as mud, check out this more detailed explanation on Wikipedia

A slight problem has emerged in that it isn't that easy to get fixtures for certain games. The rankings start at the beginning of the 2000 season (results before this aren't on CricketEurope), and include the following competitions - LCU - Senior League (Section A & B), Senior Cup, 45 over League - NCU - Senior League (Divisions 1 & 2), Senior Cup - NWCU - Senior League (Divisions 1 & 2), Senior Cup, Sam Jeffrey Cup and Faughan Valley Cup and then the Irish Senior Cup and Ulster Cup. I haven't included any Munster results as I haven't been able to find match results. Similarly matches for junior Leinster clubs haven't been included as their results aren't available on the web. Finally, Division 3 league matches in the North West, and Division 3 and 4 matches in the NCU were not included. Because of the way the rankings work, teams that had a brilliant season in Division 4 of the NCU (but who didn't play cup matches against higher ranked teams) would have the same ranking as those who had brilliant seasons in Division 1. With due respect to the successful (Division 3 and 4) Larne team of 2000 and 2001, they weren't as good as North Down, despite losing less matches

So to the results themselves. 2001 was a long time ago in Irish cricket terms. For a start the national team was just beginning to leave the old amateur era behind, and embrace modernity. The NCU and NWCU still ruled the roost in terms of the Irish Senior Cup. Until North County's first win in 2001, Phoenix were still the only LCU winner. So the rankings are dominated by NW and NCU clubs, especially the Big 5. Limavady, Brigade, North Down, Waringstown and Donemana dominated cricket at the start of the decade. Donemana won the ISC in 2000 and were runners up in the 2000 and 2001 Ulster Cup, also winning the 2001 Faughan Valley Cup and Senior Cup in 2001. Brigade won the Faughan Valley Cup in 2000, Ulster Cup in 2001 and Senior League in 2001. Limavady won the Senior Cup and League double in 2000. Across in the NCU, North Down won the Cup in 2000 and 2001 and league in 2001. Meanwhile Waringstown won the league in 2000. It's not hard to see why they were the best clubs in the land. It's Limavady though that come out top of the pile. Decker Curry was in his prime (in fact I suppose he still is) whilst not winning as many trophies as their counterparts Limavady's consistency makes them the strongest team in the land.

Elsewhere, the LCU only has 5 teams in the top 20. Merrion are top dogs, the Torrisi/Spanner team winning the league in 2001. North County were moving up the charts - 22nd at the end of 2000, after winning their first Irish Senior Cup in 2001 against Cliftonville, they were up to 10th at the end of 2001, possibly due to a certain A Botha joining them from Clontarf during the off season. From a personal viewpoint, Leinster's glory days of the late 90's have quickly disappeared, dropping down to 41st in the country.

Keep an eye on these pages, as the 2002 rankings will be out next week. If you have any comments, either mail Paul Reynolds here or make a comment on the CricketEurope forum

#	Team	Played	Pts	Average
1	Limavady	38	3205	85
2	North Down	45	3738	83
3	Donemana	45	3690	82
4	Brigade	41	3220	79
5	Waringstown	36	2567	71
6	Merrion	37	2517	69
7	Cliftonville	40	2765	69
8	Clontarf	31	2147	69
9	NICC	35	2360	68
10	North County	41	2759	67
11	Downpatrick	38	2473	65
12	Bangor	34	2127	62
13	Phoenix	33	2044	61
14	Muckamore	37	2246	61
15	Bready	32	1867	59
16	Strabane	34	1962	58
17	Pembroke	36	2046	56
18	Eglinton	33	1774	54
19	Drummond	30	1609	53
20	Armagh	33	1702	52
21	Instonians	36	1800	50
22	Malahide	32	1563	48
23	Carrickfergus	29	1396	48
24	Lisburn	40	1909	47
25	YMCA	34	1547	46
26	Woodvale	38	1730	45
27	Derriaghy	33	1420	43
28	Glendermott	36	1524	43
29	Munster Reds	17	715	42
30	CYM	36	1492	41
31	Creevedonnell	29	1207	41
32	Lurgan	34	1409	41
33	Sion Mills	29	1181	40
34	Dublin University	11	446	39
35	Fox Lodge	31	1205	39
36	Burndennett	27	1051	38
37	The Hills	34	1287	38
38	Cooke Collegians	32	1202	37
39	Railway Union	37	1372	37
40	Ballymena	35	1188	34
41	Leinster	32	1015	32
42	Ardmore	30	943	31
43	Holywood	32	944	30
44	Old Belvedere	31	865	28
45	Millpark	18	499	28
46	North Fermanagh	26	687	26
47	Coleraine	14	350	26
48	Laurelvale	28	705	25
49	Rush	31	645	21
50	St Johnston	25	364	15
51	Crindle	12	141	11
52	Queen's University	13	112	9
53	Saintfield	19	164	9
54	Academy	13	59	5