Irish Sporting Eye

Ahead of next weekend’s Guinness Pro 14 kick-off Ulster today announced that centre Stuart McCloskey will remain at Kingspan Stadium until 2022. The 26 year-old, who joined the club in 2014, has committed his future to the Province, putting pen to paper on a three-year contract extension. McCloskey, who developed his game at Bangor GS and Dungannon RFC, made his Ulster debut in February 2014 and has represented his home province on 82 occasions. He has also been capped by Ireland three times. McCloskey was delighted to agree new terms saying, “I’m really excited to have signed a new contract. I grew up dreaming of playing for Ulster and I feel privileged to now be in a position to pull the jersey on every week.” “We’ve recruited strongly and have a core group of experienced players who still have their best years ahead of them. We also have a large number of promising young players coming through the system, and I’ve no doubt that they will make a big impact in the coming years

Cricket Ireland launched their new state of the art High Performance Centre in the National Sports Campus in Abbotstown yesterday afternoon. This new world-class facility will be the envy of many countries, as it was built through significant research from many of the world’s best cricketing facilitates.  The Minister of State for Tourism and Sport Brendan Griffin TD, was on hand to cut the ribbon on the new €700,000 facility, along with  the Chief Executive of the ICC David Richardson, Chairman of Sport Ireland Kieran Mulvey and Mayor of Fingal Cllr. Anthony Lavin.  The first-phase of the development (below)  the construction of 5 artificial and 16 grass practice wickets, is now complete, although the grass wickets need approximately 18 months to bed in before use.  2018 has been a remarkable year for cricket in Ireland, with an historic first-ever Test match, sold-out T20 Internationals against India, along with Ireland’s Women qualifying for the Women’s T20 World Cup. The o