BASKETBALL: O’Leary hopes hard work pays off again in cup

Preparation on and off the court key to a successful weekend for Brunell hosts

This is the second year in a row that Cork has hosted the Basketball Ireland National Cup weekend. For basketball lovers it’s a feast of top-class action, with the biggest names in the sport going up against each other.

If you are hosting the event, though, the challenges can be a bit more mundane. You need people who are handy with a mop and brush, for one thing.

Ask Kieran O’Leary, head coach in Brunell Ladies’ Basketball Club. As co-hosts of the weekend events with Neptune, O’Leary says they’ve had a lot on their plate.

“Hosting the finals is a great honour for any club, obviously, but there’s a lot of work involved,” he says.

“For instance, we’ve ended up having to get about 50 volunteers out for the weekend. You need six people to look after the tea and sandwiches for people; the regulations mean 12 stewards have to be provided for each game, and in turn that means a total of 30 people are needed for stewarding alone over the entire weekend.

“It comes down to nitty-gritty stuff like having people on hand with mops and brushes to clean sweat off the floor if someone falls during a game, to make sure nobody else slips there. Small things, but important things.

“It’s great to have the finals here, but there’s a lot involved, certainly. We’d have had people up in the Stadium and the Parochial Hall for the last seven nights. I know, I was one of them!”

For all that, O’Leary backs the decision to bring the finals to Cork once again. He doesn’t need to cite the area’s long-standing interest in the sport to prove his point; he’s far more practical when he produces evidence.

“Leaving aside the popularity of basketball in Cork, have a look at the two venues. It’s literally a stroll down the hill from the Hall to the Stadium, so it’s very easy to get two sessions in.

“With respect to other locations, they don’t have two top venues in such close proximity to each other. The hall in UL is an outstanding venue for basketball but there’s nowhere close to it within Limerick.

“The same goes for Dublin — you have terrific venues, but they’re stand-alone places and the nearest venue is always a few miles away. ”

“Just in terms of accessibility and so on, Cork is always going to be an obvious choice — when you add in the popularity and tradition in basketball here it only makes sense.”

O’Leary’s Brunell teams are part of that tradition. He points out that success last year makes this January a little tougher for his charges.

“It’s a bit different for us this year in that we won the U18 title last year as underdogs, which means we’re probably seen as favourites this weekend.

“Everyone prefers the underdog tag but there’s not a lot we can do about that — it doesn’t win or lose games for you. There’s a fair bit of crossover in terms of having players on the U18, U20 and senior panels but one advantage is that the games are on separate days — we had a situation last year where some of the girls on two different teams had only an hour or so between games, which wasn’t ideal.”

Cian Nihill of Basketball Ireland pointed out in these pages earlier in the week that basketball fans wouldn’t be doing themselves any favours if they kept to the men’s games in the Neptune Stadium — that there was plenty of quality on offer in the women’s games. O’Leary agrees wholeheartedly.

“Cian’s right, obviously people are going to have a focus on the men’s games but in terms of quality of basketball and excitement the women’s game is every bit as good.

“For us, we’re on home court and that’s going to be a bit of a help to us. In the U18 we’re up against Oblate of Dublin and on the Sunday it’s Meteors, so you’re talking about two tough teams there.

“One advantage, maybe, is that because the finals are in Cork then we might have that bit more support.

“It’s a help to people that they don’t have to shell out a couple of hundred euro to get up to Dublin to follow us, so hopefully they’ll come along in good numbers.

“Because it’s the biggest show in town this weekend we’re hoping that a lot of people will be coming for the experience and that they might discover an interest in the sport.

“It’d help if they fall in behind us along the way — we’ll need that support, certainly.”