At last, a silver symbol for Ballincollig’s basketball family

Ballincollig 69 Keane’s SuperValu Killorglin 64: Ballincollig coach Kieran O’Sullivan was quivering with emotion, but his description of this Men’s President’s Cup final was as apt as it was terse.

“That was a rollercoaster,” O’Sullivan said, and as he elaborated, it was evident he wasn’t only referring to the 40 minutes of Saturday drama at the National Arena.

“It’s been up and down all week, Ciaran (O’Sullivan) was battling a flu, we didn’t know how much he could give us, Jimmy Puha the same, Ronan (O’Sullivan, the coach’s son) had a wrist problem.” But that’s just the micro stuff. At a macro level, Ballincollig basketball has been a roller-coaster too of forward then back, progress followed by disappointment. Finally this year the club decided to go National League. Sitting in the stands Saturday were Francis O’Sullivan and his wife Grace who’ve been buffeted every step of the journey, from nursery to this epic finale. Except, it can’t be that, believes Kieran O’Sullivan, the coach and Francis’ brother.