PEMBROKE

Captain: Paul Lawson
Players in: Blake MacDonald
Players out: Nick Stapleton

The defending champions have an incredible depth of talent available at Sydney Parade and despite the loss of the hugely influential Nick Stapleton look to have secured a quality replacement as overseas professional in Blake MacDonald.

Paul Lawson has the captain's armband once again and is relishing the opportunity for more trophies in 2025.

"We’re all hugely excited for the season ahead," Lawson told CricketEurope.

"With all that we achieved in 2024, we’re looking to start again in 2025.

"Blake MacDonald replaces the talismanic Nick Stapleton. Blake has had a fantastic season in Melbourne, resulting in a couple of caps for Victoria, as well as a Premiership with St Kilda - performances we hope he can bring with him to Ireland when he arrives later on this month.

"At stages we’ll be without players on representative duty, as usual, but we’ll also miss brothers Diarmaid (studying) and Fiachra (work) Tucker for large parts of the season, as well as Olly Riley with exams.

"That said, we’ll look to the mainstays of last season in the likes of JJ Garth, Byron McDonough and Jack & Tim Tector, in addition to maximising our squad depth to keep us in contention.

"If we can put together some strong performances early in the season, we’ll hopefully be in the mix come the business end."

There's no doubt that Pembroke will once again be the side to beat.