It appears that Cricket Ireland have thrown Ballyspallen out of the National Cup and they won't be in the draw for the semi-finals.

The North-West side had beaten Terenure in Sunday's quarter-final, but they included in their ranks, South African Test player Eddie Moore, as a replacement overseas player for Kasigo Rapulana.

While the NWCU had accepted Moore's registration and collected the associated admintration fee of 100 pounds, it transpired that he was in fact ineligible to feature in the competition.

Ballyspallen had acted in good faith and have the emails from the local governing body assuring them that Moore was okay to play.

However, Cricket Ireland's regulations for the National Cup state in paragraph 2d:

For matches in the Quarter-Finals and later, players are only eligible to play if they have played or, in the event of a match having been decided by a bowl-out, been named in the team for that match, in an earlier round of the
competition, or have been registered by their club with their Provincial Union to play cricket for that club by 31st
May. 

All will become clearer when Cricket Ireland release the draw for the last four of the Irish Senior and National Cups on Wednesday.

It now seems that the North West's quest for a first National Cup will go on for another year.