Tigers boss Falvey keeps eye on the double

ABRAKEBABRA TIGERS have targeted the double since the start of the season, coach Dave Falvey admitted yesterday.

On Sunday they won the first leg by winning the National Cup for the second time and next weekend the table-toppers travel to Belfast for a cross-conference NIVEA for MEN SuperLeague game against Star of the Sea.

“It is going to be difficult without Micheál Quirke and Kieran Donaghy,” the coach admitted. “At the start of the season we took a look our players and we decided we had a great chance of winning the double.

“We also planned to go through the season unbeaten. Unfortunately, we lost two games early on, one against Shamrock Rovers Hoops and the other against DART Killester.

“Significantly, against Hoops we were without Micheál Quirke and Kieran Donaghy and against Killester we were short Micheál and Dave Fanning, our MVP on Sunday, and you just cannot afford to be without one of your American players.”

Quirke has been recalled to the Kerry football panel by Pat O’Shea and he will be joining Donaghy for the NFL game against Mayo next weekend.

“We can replace Kieran Donaghy with John Teahan but we have no replacement for Micheál,” Falvey said. “He has become our key man and he is fitter than ever.

“In fact, he arrived at the start of the season fitter than we had ever seen him and, while the player himself must take credit for that, we have to hand it to John Evans, trainer of Kerins O’Rahily’s GAA team, for getting him into that kind of shape.

“We have certainly benefited but he has grown in confidence this season and we saw that in the cup semi-final and final. In the final quarter of the semi-final he probably gave the best performance ever by an Irish player. So whenever he is missing, he is going to be a big loss.

“We have seven games left and if we win three of them we’ll still make the play-off, but we want to top our division.”

Tigers won the league for the first time in 1996 when they were coached by Cork legend, Tim McCarthy, and they won it again in 2004, under Russ Bradburd.

Falvey said. “I would like to see the play-offs being played at Neptune Stadium. It is the spiritual home of basketball and the atmosphere there is unrivalled.

“Cork is a great basketball city. Just look at the National Basketball Arena at the weekend. There were eight Cork teams there and they generated a great atmosphere.

“We also had a huge following. Three coach-loads travelled from Tralee and another coach went from Caherciveen and the Tralee train to Dublin was full.”

The cup was taken to the Greyhound Bar on Sunday night and subsequently to Fabric Night Club, both club sponsors.