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The first week of October provided another exciting and varied week for ECC Coach Richard O’Sullivan in Italy.  Firstly he was able to conduct development meetings with many FCrI members who along with Richard were able to witness the national team play the MCC touring team twice over the weekend of 2nd and 3rd October in Rome.  Capannelle Cricket Club with its new ingenious sightscreen system and at the end of a long Italian summer a relatively lush outfield hosted the teams who shared the spoils at one match each. A fair reflection on the performance of both sides and more evidence of the continued development of the national side with a number of the younger Italian players making significant contributions.

The rest of that week was spent at the other end of the European development spectrum, with a second trip to Taranto in the heel of Italy to promote and work with local schools.  The visit began with a press conference with local TV and newspapers along with fifteen interested schools.  Many of these school Richard visited during the week which further extended the promotion of cricket in the area.

The 9 day trip concluded with even warmer weather than in Taranto with 31degrees in Catania in Sicily for the finals of the FCrI U15 competition.  Three teams: Murri from Sicily, Trentino from Trento and Gallicano from Rome had qualified from their groups earlier in their year.  The last match of a six match tournament saw an excellent standard of cricket between Trentino who beat Gallicano to make it one match each, with both teams having beaten Murri twice the championship was decided on who had taken more wickets during the series and this left Gallicano the Under 15 champions.  The heartening thing for Italian cricket was to see a number of such promising cricketers for the future.