Hoop dream for Leeside fans as arch rivals set for showdown

THE form guide points to a classic. When UCC Demons and National Event Hire Neptune clashed in the SuperLeague this season, overtime was required before the former claimed a three-point win over their arch rivals.

Tomorrow the Cork pair are pitted against one another in the SuperLeague National Cup semi-final at Neptune Stadium.

More than local bragging rights are at stake – Demons are cup champions and desperate for back-to-back titles.

“It was always going to be a big game, the buzz is fantastic, there’s no question about it – it’s going to be a sell-out,” Demons’ coach, Luke D’Allesio, insists.

“I think fans have been waiting for this since the last night (league game). That was spectacular. It was high scoring (111-108) but don’t expect that this time.”

Neptune coach, Pat Price, concurred: “It will be a big occasion. You can take what happened in the first game and vamp it up a little bit.”

Price is hopeful Gary Walsh can take up his position at the point. “He’s still on the mend,” Price said. “He has been training and we expect to use him. It will be a great boost to us because he is really important to what we are trying to do this year.”

While their neighbours were forced to sit it out for a couple of weeks on account of the weather, Neptune had a game in Limerick last weekend.

“OK we lost but we needed one of those games,” Price said. “You get such great value out of it – replication of what is required.”

Price was the man who steered UCC Demons to cup glory and, since then, they have never looked back. However he insists the past wouldn’t be an issue come game time.

“I want our guys to be focused on our own performances rather than on the other club.

“There is a lot of familiarity between the players. It makes the task harder. There are not a lot of new tricks you are going pull in front of a guy like Shane Coughlan and vice versa.”

Pressure is what the Demons’ game is all about. They can tease, play the game, hold back but when they come out rolling in the third quarter they are difficult to stop.

Joshua Johnson is an American who knows where the basket is and if they have had a problem with his marking then they can resolve it by rotating new recruit, Tyrone Beale, who was on D’Allessio’s college roster back in the States.”

Meanwhile, Killester wouldn’t lack for incentives in tomorrow’s National Cup semi-final with Dublin rivals UCD Marian at Neptune Stadium.

Mark Keenan’s side are still haunted by their under-performance in last year’s decider to UCC Demons and are desperate to right that with silverware. Then there is the memory of this season’s 72-67 defeat to tomorrow’s opponents in the northern conference.

Keenan agreed: “We need to overturn that defeat and that’s going to be motivation enough. We let it slip on the home stretch. We can’t allow that happen again and we want to atone for the disappointment of last season.”

Bolstering Keenan’s side is new signing Jermaine Turner. The 6’5” New Yorker won a SuperLeague with St Vincent’s before a spell in Spain. And Turner too is keen on cup glory.

Keenan continued: “On his day Jermaine is one of the top Americans over here and I think he proved that in the quarter-finals against Limerick. He is really up for this game. He wants a cup medal badly.”

Despite winning their league encounter, UCD Marian coach Frank Ryan claims his side are underdogs.

But he is not without hope.

He vowed: “If we play to our optimum we can win this one. We have not been very consistent this season and have lost games by small margins. We beat Saints, we lost to Star by a few points, we beat Killester and we beat Elks in the cup. We have an incredibly young team. The average age is 21. They are learning all the time.”