Demons and Neptune deliver the goods
Demons were always dominant against the Galway side and led 50-28 at half-time.
Up front, Shawn Atupem was hammering the boards once again and ended up with the game high of 21 points while Niall Murphy hit 15. Shane Duggan, who starred against Neptune in the derby game, stepped up once again and contributed 13 points.
The Demons’ defence was superb once again yesterday and provided little room for the likes of Luke Enos and Ciaran Nihill to inflict any real damage. Enos had to settle for 15 points with Nihill scoring 14.
Paul Kelleher’s side were obviously still buzzing after their win over Neptune but the coach was keeping his feet firmly on the ground.
“We are hitting a rich vein of form, but we are working very hard on getting our consistency levels up,” he said. “We are not where we want to be yet, but we are definitely getting there.”
He believes the team ethic is beginning to bear fruit.
“There is a great camaraderie between the guys in the squad,” he said. “They know that they can all rely on each other, and they are starting to get the benefit from the amount of work they are doing.”
Demons and Neptune meet for the third time this season in the semi-finals of the National Cup the weekend after next and, while Kelleher insists that they are not looking at that game at all yet, Neptune coach, Mark Scannell, has that game very much on his mind.
Their 74-67 victory over Eagles in Limerick proved that a good team does not become a bad team overnight. However, Scannell made no secret of his disappointment after the 99-64 derby defeat which he described as “horrible.”
“We’ll be doing nothing else only working on defence over the next two weeks and we will be a different team by hook or by crook,” he insisted.
And they were showing signs of a vast improvement yesterday afternoon when they held Eagles to 67 points.
“We are a very proud team,” he said. “We didn’t do ourselves justice the other night. Everybody, myself included, knew we needed to improve on that, and to be fair, we have worked very hard in the last few days. We put it right today and got a much needed and well deserved win. We have now beaten UL in the head-to head this season which could be hugely important when it comes to the playoffs.”
He is now intent on putting the derby defeat aside and focusing on the challenges ahead — especially the cup semi.
“We have a very important couple of weeks in front of us,” he said. “We are well aware of what we need to do. We let ourselves down the last night but to be honest we are not going to think about that again.”
Nivea For Men SuperLeague: UCC Demons 88 (50)(S Atupem 21, N Murphy 15, S Duggan 13) Moycullen 65 (28)(L Enos 15, C Nihill 14, J Loughane 13); UL Eagles 67 (30)(R Taylor 17, M Hall 16, R Lynch 14) Bord Gais Neptune 74 (36)(R Thompson 22, R Downey 15, G Noonan 13).
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