Tallaght sells out for Friday night fever

Friday night lights for basketball’s blue riband finals. Good idea or pandering to TV?

For UL Huskies head coach James Weldon, it depends on your perspective.

“From a coach’s and preparation point of view, it would be very hard to play [semi-final victims] Wildcats on the Friday and Glanmire on the Sunday. That’s the way it used to be, and while it was a great weekend for the fans, not so much for the players.

“With the finals as a standalone on Friday night, it has given us two weeks to change things, look at Glanmire’s tape and devise our strategy.”

Weldon has also been at the National Arena on cup final weekend as a fan and accepts maybe the buzz is not as great come Saturday.

But that takes no account of the runaway success the cup semi-finals was in Cork a fortnight ago. And no-one’s complaining tonight, with Basketball Ireland confirming that the televised double session (Setanta, 6.30pm) has sold out.

Team Montenotte Hotel coach Andrea Congreaves played in the WNBA and is an old pro at preparing for big, televised games.

“There is huge excitement within the club. This is something that we have been talking about since I arrived here, making it to a cup final and with our U18s playing in the cup final on Saturday, the whole club is excited and proud of where we are.

“Yes there are nerves but preparations are going well. We have an experienced bunch of girls and are getting ready like we would any other game.”

Glanmire and UL met once already this season with the ladies from Glanmire in Cork coming out victorious by 13 points, snapping UL’s 45-game win streak.

“That game against UL was a certain type of game but Friday’s will be different,” maintains Congreaves.

“They will have a new game-plan after losing to us and we will have a different approach too.”

Weldon agrees: “These opportunities don’t come along very often and the players know that. The girls are really eager to try and make it two in a row.”

Experience does count, he believes, and after “getting the monkey off our back last year” by winning the cup, Weldon hopes that some of the pressure is lifted.

“I’m sure everyone will be nervous come Friday but we do have the experience of last year.”