David Delany has fond memories of Bready, venue for Saturday’s Irish Cup final between Clontarf and Balbriggan. Indeed, the last time, before this season, that Delany captained a team was the Clontarf Under 13s and, back in 2011, he led them to the final of All-Ireland U13 Cup against their hosts.

It’s a day he’ll never forget because he took five wickets in five balls and narrowly missed a full house, with the sixth ball of the over going just over the stumps.

“It actually came up in conversation this year when Curtis (Campher, the first to take five in five in the professional game, for Munster Reds) bowled his amazing spell against North West Warriors," says Delany. To be honest, I don’t remember much of the over – not that I was too young but more that I was in a “state of flow, the perfect equilibrium’ – the sort of ideal performance state all athletes search for. I think I’ve only reached it once since then (the first over for Ireland against UAE in October 2019).

“That said, I remember almost everything else from that day with pictures (on CricketEurope) giving me flashes of recollection.

“It was nice that we won the final with Rod Hokin – after five years as a pro with Clontarf. It was an appropriate sending off for his tireless and phenomenal work he had done as a player but, more importantly, as a coach with the club.

“This year we have Patrick Xie in the team, who Rod taught and coached in high school in Sydney so it’s nice that, in some way, Rod will be connected to our team once again in the final.

“Incidentally, also in that Under13 winning team, Colin and Sean Currie played for Dublin in the All-Ireland hurling semi-final against Cork last month and Patrick Kirk played professional football for Bohemians. Good memories.”

Delany will be fully focused on the present when the squad arrive in the North West on Friday night, bidding to make amends for the disappointment of their Senior Cup final defeat by Pembroke two weeks ago.

“It definitely was not one of our strongest performances but it was not a failure,” insists the skipper. “We play an aggressive, on the front-foot type of cricket and sometimes we don’t hit the sweet spot

“I made a few tactical errors on the day which hurt us but we rebooted ourselves during the week, doubled down and went again against Pembroke in the league week and won (convincingly by 57 runs, with Mitchell Thompson and Campher both scoring centuries).

“Mitchell has been amazing. The tone of our season has been set by Mitchell and Seamus (Lynch) up top. They have been empowered to capitalise on the powerplay so we were all so delighted for Mitchell last Saturday with his 127 not out – and that has taken him past 600 runs for the season.”

Campher would normally be a big miss on Saturday – the Ireland international has joined Essex for the remainder of the county’s Metro Bank One Day Cup competition – but Clontarf reached the semi-final without him because of his long-term injury and although he took the attack to Malahide in the last round, scoring 68 off 61 balls, he was upstaged by Eoghan Delany who batted through for 117 not out and Xie hit a 40-ball 50.

“Eoghan also scored 68 not out in the first round against Templepatrick, John McNally took six wickets against Rush and then a super century by Seamus in quick time put us on the front foot against Pembroke. Once we got the wicket of AB (Andrew Balbirnie) we were confident of victory,” said Delany, who modestly didn’t mention his own undefeated century against Rush. Indeed, the captain goes into the final with a batting average of 114 in the Irish Cup this season in what is supposedly his weaker suit.

Even without Campher, however, Clontarf will start favourites against a team they have not played since the opening day of the season when the Castle Avenue side racked up 320 for seven (Lynch 94, E Delany 60 and Xie 56) for a 113 runs victory.

But no-one in the Clontarf camp will be taking anything for granted, with Balbriggan’s progress having got increasingly difficult yet more convincing.

After a first round victory against Cliftonville Academy, they showed their fighting spirit against Leinster, as they somehow defended 102 – winning by two runs – and then came North West champions Donemana.

Captain Greg Ford takes up the story.

“That was a brilliant day for the club. Donemana brought a massive crowd down and it made for a great atmosphere. We restricted the runs in the middle and chased the score (220-9) very well to win by six wickets with 70s for Cam Rowe and Chris de Freitas.

“Then we topped it off with a last over victory against a really strong Lisburn team. They got off to a flyer but our spinners (Dylan Lues, Jordan Hollard and Farooq Nasr) slowed them down and the quicks (Andy Darroch, Seb D’Oliveria and Matt Hollard) came back on to finish the job off (254 all out).

“Cam and Dylan Lues both batted beautifully but it was Jordan Hollard who was the hero on the day. He smashed the ball to all parts (55 not out off 50 balls) and with brother Matt sealed a one-wicket win.

“I must also mention Kashif Ali who not only scored the winning runs but he has a habit of picking up important wickets, including the prized scalp of the Lisburn pro.”

Balbriggan are also going into the game on a high with that sensational bowling performance last weekend, when they bowled out The Hills for 19 – the fifth lowest in Leinster senior cricket and the lowest since the 1940s. Ironically, the all-time low is 12 by Clontarf in 1936, against Phoenix.

“That was crazy,” admits Ford. “I’ve never been involved in an innings like that before. We felt before the game if we got (Oliver) Horlock cheaply that there was a good chance we would bowl them out for a low score, but we never envisaged it would be that low!

“Matt Hollard was devastating on the day and ripped through the batting (six wickets for six runs) and we polished it off in a couple of overs, so it was nice to be on the right side of an early finish.

"But we can’t wait for Saturday. It’s the biggest day in the history of the club (it’s only their sixth year in the Irish Cup – Clontarf have been ever presents in the 42 editions) and we are all excited for this special occasion. We have two bus loads of fans travelling by car so there should be great support from the Brig faithful on the day.

“We start as underdogs but we’ve probably been underdogs for most of this competition so it could be a good omen on the day.”

However, there are omens on the Clontarf side as well – and not just David Delany’s return to Bready as captain. His older brother Eoghan is the one survivor from Clontarf’s only previous Irish Cup win, scoring 42 against Merrion in 2013.

With a full programme of matches in the North West, there may not be many neutrals present but there was never any question of the match – or Sunday’s  National Cup final between Co Kerry and Co Galway, the following day - being moved from Bready.

It’s the day Leinster comes to the North West and there is a guaranteed second winner from north Dublin. The only previous Leinster team to win the Irish Cup in the North West was North County, when they completed their fifth triumph in 2008 in Strabane.