Can Neptune get it together to shock old rivals Demons in playoff showdown?

It’s the first seed going up against the eighth but anything could happen in tis local derby.

Sat, 22 Mar, 2025 - 07:53

Kieran Shannon

Strip away the names, ignore the history the two clubs share, you’d have no hesitation as to who you think should win this game.

It’s the first seed going up against the eighth, and at home too, not in some neutral venue as is the practice in the March Madness they have on the other side of the Atlantic.

But this isn’t just any ordinary 1v8 matchup.

It’s Demons versus Neptune. The Manchester United v Liverpool of Irish basketball.

There isn’t a question who is the better side.

Demons under Danny O’Mahony these past few seasons have been as consistent and impressive as what Anfield’s residents have offered up, though they will also feel they should have even more silverware on board to show for it.

Neptune have been as exasperating and as exasperated as anything Old Trafford has routinely seen, a team and a club that, for all the big-name coaches and talented players it has and has, serially shrinks under the weight of its glorious past.

Yet in a one-off knockout game could you truly dismiss Neptune’s crew of Brunos? The three times United and Liverpool have met in a domestic cup match in the post-Ferguson era United have won.

Neptune cannot win the league – even in this playoff format in which all it takes us at this stage is three more wins.

But they can stop a side that could win it all from winning it all. Especially when the side and party they can spoil is Demons’.

That is the nature of this rivalry.

And it is the nature of this current Neptune side.

Two years ago this month they went down to a packed Tralee sports complex for what was a must-win game for both sides. It was the last match of the regular season. Whoever won qualified for the league playoffs. Whoever lost missed out. Tralee had won nine of their previous ten games. They were the reigning league champions. They were at home in front of a thousand fanatical supporters.

And yet as infuriating and frustrating as Neptune and Jordan Blount found each other and that season to be, for that one night he and his teammates rose to the challenge and occasion, culminating in him nailing a game-winning three from the logo.

The following week Neptune crashed out of the playoffs at the first hurdle, losing to Star. And last season, with Blount still on their books, they didn’t even make the playoffs. The experiment of bringing home possibly their most talented if complex of sons may not have worked yet Jordan and the club will always have the consolation and memory of Tralee.

Blount may have moved onto Killorglin but in his place Darragh O’Sullivan, another prodigal son of the club and of the legendary Tom, has returned to his alma mater after four years of college ball in Florida.

He does not yet have the confidence and consistency in his game that he once had and will have again but is as capable of going for 25 tomorrow in the Mardyke as he is for five. If he makes at least two of his first four shots, all bets are off because of how he could go off. He and Neptune remain that dangerous and that explosive. The talent is there, and given the identity of the opposition, they also now have the cause.

They are down another O’Sullivan. Darragh’s brother, Conor, who also spent some time playing college ball in the States earlier in his career, last week moved to Brisbane.

A cynic would take that as symptomatic of how fractured Neptune’s season and camp would appear to be, a player leaving on the eve of the playoffs, but the reality is different: O’Sullivan had to start his new job this month if he were to have it at all while Neptune were also willing to fly him back for any playoff games. Australia ain’t Austria or even America though, and between them wisely decided it was too far a journey and stretch.

What compounds Neptune’s dilemma and anguish is that they are down – that they have lost – several other members of a golden generation of underage players and two of them, James and Scott Hannigan, are now with Demons.

What makes it worse is that no one could blame them for leaving. During Colin O’Reilly’s tenure they weren’t significantly featuring in his rotation. Over in Demons under O’Mahony’s shrewd guidance, James has been a green light and Scott a highly-valued role. What they lacked in refinement they brought what Neptune currently seem to lack: that northside fire, Dive On Glass mindset that Demons stalwart Jim Dineen colourfully coined and all the great Neptune teams used to exhibit and exemplify.

Among their ranks though there are serious, proud players. Roy Downey is a seasoned international. If Cian Heaphy gets downhill there is hardly a more dynamic Irish player in the league. Demons will likely look to press Downey playing at the point when he’s more comfortable playing off the ball before falling into a zone to dare Heaphy to shoot the three and prevent him driving inside. But in Pat Price Neptune have a coach with a track record of devising game-plans to disrupt and defeat more favoured sides in elimination games.

So who’s going to win? A nervous Demons fan put it this way to us during the week: Neptune by two or Demons by 22.

But here we see it somewhere in the middle, like last month’s league clash in the Neptune. Neptune are too proud and talented to get smashed or fall apart but Demons are too cohesive and too good to be denied. Demons by eight.