THE pop-up stadium at Malahide drew plenty of praise last week, but the next time England come to visit they could be changing in a brand new €3million bricks and mortar pavilion.
The new home of Irish cricket will take time to take shape, but last week Cricket Ireland's Warren Deutrom set a demanding two-year deadline for the key building. The planning process may put a spoke in his wheel, but you can't fault the ambition.
The structure could be eligible for matching ICC funding for infrastructure projects, while the other stakeholders will also be keen to enhance the venue.
In just one game the Department of Sport has already seen a huge slice of its €450,000 grant returned to the State in economic benefits, while Fingal Council's vision and co-operation has turned a spotlight on that area.
The club met the council at the end of last week to review the game but all the talk was of the future and what can be done better.
Any new building would need to conform to rigorous ICC standards as well as respecting the heritage aspects of the beautiful Castle and grounds. It could also contain office space for the growing Cricket Ireland organisation.
"When we started in 2007 we hoped we'd get lots of stakeholder support but obviously the recession put that back", says Ian Talbot of Malahide CC.
"It meant we adopted a phased approach and that's gone close to plan. There was huge volunteer support last week and a huge feelgood feeling in the club, and an appetite to move onto the next phase."
CRAIG Hogan was appointed Director of the new National Academy on Monday, and the Australian will have plenty of talent to shape in the coming years.
Top of his agenda should be the appointment of a full-time national fast bowling coach to oversee the bumper crop of youngsters itching to fill Trent Johnston and Boyd Rankin's boots.
And he needs to have his fellow Wollongong native top of that list - before he disappears from our shores.
Johnston, who successfully coached Leinster Lightning in their debut season, has already been linked to high-profile head coach jobs at four associate nations and one New Zealand province.
Hogan's seam bowling in-tray will have names such as McCarter (Gloucestershire), Young (Sussex), Thompson (NW Warriors), Chase and Richardson (Leinster Lightning), as well as teenagers such as Mark Adair (CSN) and the exciting Anders brothers of Phoenix.
And who better to mould the next generation than the man with 188 caps and 265 wickets?
Johnston missed out this week on the job as National Academy Performance Coach. Ryan Eagleson, coach of the U19s who failed to qualify for the next World Cup, was promoted from within the system.
Of the seven seamers who bowled for Ireland at the 2007 World Cup, three have already emigrated - Dave Langford-Smith (Australia), Paul Mooney (New Zealand) and Boyd Rankin (England), with André Botha off shortly to South Africa.
That experience is lost to Irish cricket and now the most seasoned of all could be heading for the departure lounge.
IT looks like an injustice was done to Balbriggan in the RSA Division 2 relegation battle. The progressive Fingal club have struggled this year having been let down by both their hired professionals.
They finished their season on Saturday with 108 points, but fell into the bottom two next day. Because the I-Cup refix led to a ground clash, their rivals, Merrion 2nds, had their final game on Sunday and knew precisely what they needed to avoid the drop - win, or lose narrowly.
Merrion lost but managed to take nine Clontarf wickets, putting them on 108 points too.
Cricket Leinster's published regulations didn't cover a tiebreak but, mysteriously, new ones appeared overnight on its website.
A statement explained that a new rule had been agreed in 2012 to cover this situation, but had been "inadvertently" left off the site. And when that was discovered last month an "oversight" meant it wasn't published then.
The tiebreak - points gained in games between the sides - gave Merrion a 45-5 win.
The human error is unfortunate but understandable, but the sporting principle that no team should have the advantage of knowing what it needs has been standard since a soccer World Cup scandal in 1982.
A play-off is the least Balbriggan deserves, or the committee could recommend that nine teams play in Division 2 next year - which is feasible given Trinity only play each side once.
WITH all eyes on the action in Malahide, the next generation was heading the other way. Peter Chase turned out for the Durham Academy side at the weekend (4-0-22-0) while last year's Ireland U15 captain Jack Tector had a run for Glamorgan U19s.
Tector played a couple of games for Somerset last summer and that club's coach, Brian Rose, is now with Glamorgan. He invited the Dubliner over and when Middlesex were bowled out with ten overs left in the day he was asked to open. He batted through and went on to make 43.
It was enough to win the promising YMCA youngster an invitation to join the county for weekend winter training.
THE acclaimed Maurice Sweeney documentary BATMEN, The Story of Irish Cricket, gets another airing on Setanta Ireland tonight at 9pm. It is repeated tomorrow too at 4pm, and on Monday at 9pm.
TWEET OF THE WEEK: Australian journalist Jarrod Kimber (@ajarrodkimber) at Malahide: "The President of Ireland is here. Somewhere. The main jobs in Ireland are taoiseach, president and then Trent Johnston."