Weather permitting, the 2024 NW Premiership will be decided at the weekend, and it is the third-placed team in the title race who are favourites to lift the crown.

Eglinton and Donemana may be joint leaders with one game to go, but Newbuildings still have two to play, and victory with a maximum 46 points out of 50 will see captain Gareth McKeegan lifting the trophy on Sunday night for the second time in three years.

Already winners of the NW Senior Cup, it would be a second League and Senior Cup double for the veteran opening batter – he signed off a 10-year career at Brigade in 2019 with both trophies – but this would give him just as much satisfaction.

Although they have two games in quick succession to negotiate, Newbuildings are favourites because they are against the bottom two, outgoing champions Ardmore and already relegated Killyclooney, with both games at home. But McKeegan is taking nothing for granted.

“There’s no easy games, Ardmore are fighting for their lives to avoid the (Relegation) Play-Off and Killyclooney have a free hit. Any team playing free cricket can be dangerous. It only takes one or two players to come off,” he says.

Even the fact that they bowled out Ardmore for 101 and Killyclooney for 107 in the reverse fixtures in the 2024 season does not encourage the cautious skipper.
“Two games are never the same. We have to go into the games with a positive attitude and respect teams because if you go into them lightly, you can come up short,” he continues.

The bonus points used in the North West Leagues add an interesting dimension to the matches and mean the toss can be crucial, especially when desperate for a convincing victory.

“You could win by 60 runs (batting first) and get full points, but (when batting second) for every two wickets, you lose a point, and as we know, big wickets can fall pretty easily,” says McKeegan with Sunday’s one-wicket victory over Brigade fresh in the memory.

“We were 50 for two (needing just 83) and cruising, but we lost a couple of quick wickets and, suddenly, a collapse was on. Andy (Britton) brought his spinners on, he had fielders round the bat and they bowled well and were unlucky not to get over the line.”

Still, Newbuildings have been finding a way to win. Indeed, only Eglinton (twice) have beaten them in the League since May, and there were mitigating circumstances for both those losses.

“We were missing a few players in the first game, myself included, and the home game a few weeks ago, I’ll take responsibility for that because we had a mess-up of the batting order with Mark Hanna having to go to work,” recalls the captain.

But, on the day, the players have invariably responded, and they have claimed their seventh and eighth wins of the 2024 season without professional Samarth Seth who had to return to India after the Cup Final, leaving behind 997 runs at an average of 71.

But Ryan Hunter (788 runs at 46) and McKeegan himself (630 at 31) have ensured Newbuildings have three batters in the top seven run-scorers in the 2024 season and, in Ross Hunter, the joint second leading wicket-taker with 35.

“Ross is my go-to man if you need to shore it up or take wickets,” says McKeegan.

“He is very deceiving, he just trundles up, but he can move the ball both ways and catches a lot of batters out. I’ve been talking to professionals, and they are saying, ‘I wasn’t expecting that’.
“Ryan is a class act, and once he gets in, he is hard to shift and is great to watch in full flow. And I would also mention Ross Dougherty.

“With Trent (McKeegan) missing, I have asked Ross to open the bowling, and he never says no. Last week, he took three for 20 and didn’t go for many the week before, so he sets the tone for the innings.”

With a League title in their own hands going into the final weekend, it is the ideal scenario for Newbuildings, and while it is a maximum of 46 points required, McKeegan expects to need them all with Donemana playing Killyclooney on Saturday while Eglinton host Coleraine.