Quintin welcome addition to city cricket

ARMAGH Cricket Club’s 2024 professional, 29-year old South African all-rounder Quintin Dreyer, initially made quite an impression on his new team-mates at The Mall.

Having arrived in County Armagh from Cape Town on Friday, May 17, he was pitched into front line hostilities just two days later when he found himself facing Derriaghy at Seycon Park.

In what was his first ever taste of Robinson Services League Section 1 action, despite having had little time to settle into this all-new environment with its totally different culture, there was no hint of travel fatigue or of him being intimidated by his almost immediate introduction to life in Northern Ireland and the NCU-style version of the game.

Following the dismissals of Samuel Wilson and Michael Villiers - the former as the result of a controversial lbw decision, the latter the victim of a run out - Dreyer made his way out into the middle.

And in what was his first innings as an Armagh player he proceeded to post a high quality 47 in his partnership with Jamie Rogers, who hit a stylish half-century.

Together they looked a very promising double act which had the Armagh faithful licking their lips.

However, the past weekend’s results and performances will have given the new pro some idea of the size of task he faces if he is to help get Armagh motoring, for the weekend saw them lose twice.

On Friday night they went down by 67 runs against Donacloney Mill in a Lagan Steels T20 Trophy group stage match at The Mall.

The following afternoon they suffered a humiliating 10-wicket Section 1 drubbing by newly-promoted Lurgan at Pollock Park, where they were bowled out for a meagre 106 with 12.1 of the 50 overs remaining.

Even so, Armagh chairman and long-serving 1st XI wicket-keeper Gareth McCarter, who has seen his fair share of overseas hired hands in his time, has given the newcomer the thumbs up.

“I think we may have landed on our feet with Quintin, who’s a top order bat and opening seam bowler,” he enthused. “I know these are early days, but first impressions certainly have been good.”

Elaborating on the reasons for his optimism he continued, “I think the fact that he did so well when – because we’d players missing – he was thrown in at such short notice against Derriaghy - was a good indication of the sort of guy he is.”

But it really has been the allegorical baptism of fire, for having arrived on the Friday and then played on the Sunday, Monday night saw him working with the youngsters who had signed up for the start of Armagh’s Power Cricket programme.

Wednesday was a practice night with his new senior team colleagues and on Thursday the South African worked with the club’s Under 15s on what was a cold, overcast night. In other words, conditions markedly different to those in Cape Town where, prior to coming here, he had been playing Premier-level club cricket.

Acknowledging Dreyer’s workload, veteran ‘keeper McCarter said, “Between senior practice, the occasional mid-week match or two and youth coaching sessions, there’ll be something for him to do every night of the week.

“And then, of course, for a couple of weeks in July he’ll be working with Samuel [Wilson] at the summer scheme, so he’s going to be busy.

“The other side of the coin is that – as with most pros with clubs here in Northern Ireland – he doesn’t have much to do during the day, so that’s all time he has to himself.”

He added, “And I know from what he has said that he is really taken with the city itself and our ground and clubhouse at The Mall, which he thinks is a really beautiful setting for cricket.

“He’s right, of course – it is. But because we’re all so familiar with it, we’re maybe guilty of taking that for granted, which is why it does us no harm to be reminded by somebody who, for the first time, is seeing what exactly it is that we have here.

“As for our clubhouse, which we’ve worked hard to improve, Quintin told us that there are Premier clubs in Cape Town who don’t have facilities anything like as good as ours.

“Again, I think it’s important to be reminded that we have something that even big clubs in a cricket-mad city like Cape Town don’t have.”

Dreyer’s CV shows that, in addition to playing top-level club cricket there, he trains with the much-vaunted Cape Cobras’ Academy.

And according to the Armagh chairman, “As well as that, away from the game, he’s a pretty straight-living sort of guy, so he’s not doing his body a lot of damage as a result of his lifestyle. Personality-wise he comes across as being a really likeable and easy-going bloke who so far looks to be fitting in very nicely.

“I know these are first impressions, but I think we might just have landed on our feet this time.”

In view of Armagh’s record to date this season – beaten twice in their first three league matches, out of the Gallagher Challenge Cup at the first hurdle and a fortuitous draw followed by a defeat in their opening two T20 Trophy Group B fixtures, with matches against Belfast and Ballymena – the latter at Eaton Park - to come on Friday (May 31) and June 7 respectively, the chairman, like everybody else at The Mall, will be hoping that, come the end of the season, his faith in the new man proves to have been well founded.