Dean Mehaffey shines in Donemana's North West Senior Cup triumph

In front of a restricted crowd of 200 paying spectators, Mehaffey, who deservedly picked up the ‘Man of the Match’ prize, scored an impressive 45 runs and set up an opening partnership with Gary McClintock which scored 60 runs.

And Mehaffey was thrilled to help the Holm men secure yet another Senior Cup title, admitting winning the ‘Man of the Match’ accolade was an added bonus.

“To be honest I don’t think it has sunk in yet. It will probably take me until tonight, or more likely when I wake up on Sunday morning with the ‘Man of the Match’ trophy,” he insisted.

“But that was only a bonus because I so badly wanted to win the cup. To add in man of the match is just a bonus.”

“I’m absolutely delighted that we won the cup. W came here to Beechgrove as the underdogs. It’s Brigade’s home ground and they probably prepared the wicket to maybe try to suit them with no spin, but I thought our spinners bowled well for us so, yeah, I’m thrilled to win my second Senior Cup with Donemana.

“I went out to look at the wicket before I went out to bat and it was green and hard so for the first couple of balls from the bowlers it was coming on true to the bat and I felt good from then on in.

“Once I got my first boundary out of the way, that gave me the confidence to get settled.”

Mehaffey also praised the North West Cricket Union for getting cricket organised this summer during the coronavirus pandemic.

“Its another Senior Cup for us in what has been a strange season,” added Mehaffey.

“A lot of teams in the group stages weren’t taking it too serious but once the last couple of games took place, everyone knew they needed to win to stay in the Senior Cup and that’s when the screw turned.

“To be honest we had a close call ourselves because had we played and had lost to Killyclooney then we would have been playing for the Sammy Jeffrey Cup but it was fantastic to come out of our group. Then the seriousness kicked in for the Coleraine game last week and obviously to come in here for the final to face Brigade, that’s when everything really was real.

“The North West committee were probably working more hours than usual to get cricket played and the fact that we managed to play for the Senior Cup as well was fantastic.

“I didn’t think the Senior Cup would have been played for this year because of the whole history of the competition and games only being T20 matches, I didn’t think that they would shorten the overs.

“So fantastic credit to the North West Cricket Union and everybody involved in organising what has been a very enjoyable season, one which for us has ended perfectly by bringing the Senior Cup back to Donemana.”