Trio ready to take on the world

Bready's Craig Young, Eglinton's Stuart Thompson and Killyclooney's Graeme McCarter, are part of Matt Dwyer's squad, who are set to face Australia, South Africa and the United States.

First up for the trio are South Africa on Friday, before then facing the mighty Australia on Sunday and then their Group B campaign ends against the US next Tuesday.

The threesome, who spoke to Sentinel Sport during their recent training weekend at Bready Cricket Club, can't wait for the competition to get underway.

"The prospect of going to a World Cup in New Zealand is something I'm very excited about and people can see from our training, that everyone is up for it and the intensity is very good," said Thompson.

"There's a lot of focus on developing Irish cricket and you can see that with senior coach Phil Simmons coming to Bready to look at our preparations for the World Cup.

"Ireland is pushing hard for full member status, so the youth development is key and depending on our results in the World Cup that should stand us in good stead."

Ireland reached New Zealand by winning both the European Championships in Jersey, and the World Cup Qualifying tournament in Canada, but they know life is going to be a lot tougher when they come up against the Aussies and South Africa in particular.

"We are definitely in a tough group, but that's who you want to play at the World Cup, all the top teams," admitted McCarter, who played a big role in Foyle and Londonderry College's Ulster Bank Senior Cup success last year.

"Irish cricket is definitely on the up and we have set ourselves a target of looking to beat one of the test nations and try and get into the Super Eights and then see what happens.

"There is a lot more opportunities for young cricketers in Ireland at the minute; the English County sides are certainly looking more at Irish cricket obviously because of the success in the World Cup in 2007."

With three players selected from the area it proves that cricket in the North West is thriving.

"North West cricket is now one of the top regions in Ireland and it too is definitely on the up."

Young, who after the World Cup travels to Dubai for a second trial with county kingpins Sussex, is also delighted that the North West region looks to be on the up.

"It's good that there are plenty of players from the North West who are in this squad and other Irish underage squads, which should mean cricket in the area should be good in the future," declared Young.

"As Graeme said it will be good to be playing both South Africa and Australia just to see how far we have come on. And with Phil (Simmons) talking to us about how important the Under 19 World Cup is for Ireland, it's a big tournament for us, so there has been a lot of work put in."

With most people now just getting over their Christmas celebrations, the trio themselves continued their preparations for the World Cup and they admitted there wasn't much time to join those celebrations; in fact they travelled to Australia to acclimatise.

"We had a lot of training over Christmas and there certainly wasn't a lot of time for relaxation, but to be honest hopefully it will be well worth it," concluded McCarter.