Moycullen’s final SuperLeague game of 2012 proved to be their most disappointing as they fell to a red-hot Dublin Inter team in NUIG last Saturday.
Moycullen entered the game fresh off a road win against Inter the week before and faced the prospect of propelling themselves up to fourth in the Nivea For Men’s SuperLeague should they win again.
However, the men from Galway came out extremely flat and quickly found themselves trailing by 16 points as their offence stuttered against the Inter zone defence.
Unfortunately for the home fans, Moycullen’s offence never managed to get going and some hesitant play mixed with poor shooting left them struggling to score despite being given open looks repeatedly.
While the battled well on the opposite side of the court, forcing Inter to shoot from distance their offensive inadequacy left them trailing by nine entering the break.
A spectacular alley-oop dunk by Pat Sullivan to begin the second half sparked a Moycullen comeback that saw them draw level with the visitors. However, it proved a false-dawn as in truth Moycullen never got their offence in order and continued to tentatively attack a zone defence by Inter.
When shots needed to be made during crucial stretches in the third and fourth quarter it was Inter and not Moycullen who made the big baskets.
Moycullen’s evening was summed up best when, trailing by just four points in the final quarter, usual sharp-shooter Cian Nihill threw up an air-ball that sucked any momentum for the home team out of the Kingfisher Gym.
In the end, Inter were deserving of their five point win and Moycullen head coach Salva Camps will hope that it was simply a bad day at the office for his charges.
“We weren’t good today at all,” said Camps after the game.
“Maybe we thought because we beat them last week we could just turn up and do it again, I don’t know, but we started very slowly and never put them under enough pressure. We nearly ended up winning the game but I think they deserved it.”
Moycullen’s SuperLeague team now take a short break over the holidays before they host defending champions UL Eagles in NUIG on January 5.
Moycullen: P Sullivan 19, S Camps 15, J O’Brien 8, P O’Brien 8, S Tummon 7, C Nihill 6, P Lyons 2, N Cunningham 2, D Costello, S O’Brien.
