Often referred to as the spiritual home of Irish basketball, Neptune Stadium awaits this weekend for the Moycullen Superleague basketballers as they journey to Cork city in search of some comfort and confidence.
As a result of successive dismal offensive performances, Moycullen have failed to push on from what was a promising start to 2022 when they captured some crucial wins. Since then they fell first to Belfast Star at home and then Tralee Warriors in Kerry last weekend.
A final scoring output of less than 50 points for Moycullen tells much of the story as to why they never looked like winning last weekend, and the problem of finding baskets will have coach Nollaig Cunningham worried ahead of a difficult trip to Cork to face Neptune on Saturday.
Neptune, Ireland’s most successful Superleague club historically, were slow out of the blocks this season, but a strong run in the National Cup, which saw them reach the final only to lose to Tralee Warriors, has reinvigorated their season.
They will be entering Saturday's game (4pm ) after an impressive win in Galway last weekend when they outlasted NUIG to claim victory.
Moycullen head coach John Cunningham will want to erase last Saturday’s game from the mind as nothing went right for the westerners, and their opponents proved too much to handle as they cruised to a 90 to 49 win.
“No doubt about it, it was a tough day for us," says Cunningham. "We never got anywhere close to playing well enough to leave with a win so full credit to Tralee who thoroughly deserved it.
“We struggled with their physicality and they totally knocked us out of what we were trying to do on offence.”
Tralee is a team that can score in bunches, particularly at home when boisterous supporters find full voice. A start to the game that saw two of their key imports American Aaron Colixte and German Daniel Jokubaitis nail difficult three points shots under pressure gave an indication of what thevisitors could expect throughout a tough contest.
Although Moycullen started the game positively on offence, Tralee upped their defensive intensity from mid way through the first quarter. Moycullen’s scoring suffered as a result, and with Tralee continuing to dominate on the other side of the court, they opened up a gap to end the quarter that they would never relinquish.
Tralee head coach John Dowling said his side “never really gave Moycullen a chance to get going and we executed our game plan very well”. It was a fair summation of the game for the final three-quarters.
After being 25-15 ahead at the end of the first quarter, Tralee never took their feet off the pedal, winning all three remaining quarters by 10, eight, and 13 points respectively.
A key part of Tralee's success was keeping Moycullen dangerman and captain Grant Olsson under wraps. Although Olsson did manage to shake free from some very tight coverage to find seven points, it was well below his usual 20 point target.
Aside from Ayberk Taylan, who hit 17 points, no other Moycullen player managed to get to double digits. This was not for want of effort, and Kyle Cunningham, who had seven points, and Eoghan Kelly and James Lyons, both with five, can take plenty of positives from their individual displays.
NUIG Maree
NUIG Maree suffered another heartbreaking loss to C&S Neptune. For the third time the Cork side came out on top, this time by a single point 87-86. It was the Cork side's third win over NUIG Maree, having prevailed in the league and the cup semi-final.
NUIG's Jeryn Lucas was the game's top scorer with 26, helped by Lovre Tvrdic (13 ), and Luka Krajlic and Stephen Commins (10 each ) but it was Neptune's Roy Downey (23 ), Miles Washington (19 ), and Nil Sabata (17 ) who led the way for the winners.
It was not the win NUIG's coach Charlie Crowley had hoped for on a day the club honoured club member Bruce Kelliher, who had tragically passed away last week.
NUIG Mystics
In the women's division one National League, NUIG Mystics lost by five points to Limerick Sport Huskies in the UL Arena. Courtney Cecere led the team with 14, with Kara McCleane and Sarah Messler nailing 12 each
However, the National Cup champions were rewarded for their success with with coach Paul O'Brien named the coach of the month for January, and Hazel Finn the January player of the month.
