Super League Talking Points: Panic stations in Neptune while Killester women stifle Brunell
Neptune's Adon Gregorio shoots under pressure from Ballincollig's Adrian O'Sullivan during their Men's Super League clash. Picture: David Keane
Concern has to be rising in Neptune after a third loss to start the year. Neptune can score, but their defense is nowhere near competitive standard. New signing Gregario Adon will help, but on Saturday they found themselves 20 down in the first half again and gave up 108 points.
Neptune have the fifth best offense by points per game at 90.7 but their defense is horrendous so far giving up 111.7 a game which is 15 points a game worse than the 2nd worst defense in the league.
They can argue that they’ve played some of the top offenses so far this year, which is true, but overall if they play like they have, it simply can’t work.
Watching the first half against Ballincollig, I thought they played way too fast. Too many possessions saw quick shots that led to Ballincollig run outs on the other end. The ease that Ballincollig got into the lane is a worry, as Neptune gave up over 70% field goal percentage from two for the second game in a row.
Nils Sabata will help when he’s back from injury, but I think Neptune’s biggest issue at the moment is a tactical one rather than personnel one.
For their part on Saturday, Ballincollig looked every part the very good team we expected this year. Latavious Mitchell had 38 and is settling into Ireland well, but it’s the smart pieces around him, particularly Josh Steel, which make Ballincollig dangerous this year.
Whether last week at home to Eanna was an anomaly or not we’ll see over the next month or so, but Killester’s performance on Saturday set a marker for what they are capable of being this year.
They shut down Killorglin, who really felt the absence of Rami Ghanem who got injured last week in the win over Demons. Killester have always been built on strong defense, and this year’s group have the ability to be the best defense in the country.
Killorglin will be more disappointed in the nature of the loss, rather than the loss itself. They did well last weekend with their big lineup, but Killester may be the perfectly built team to defend them, with Matt McGrath and Paul Dick in particular doing a great job on Jordan Blount and Oche Okeke.
They’ll have to hope that Ghanem is back soon to make them more dynamic.
I think this weekend saw the biggest impact of the new two Irish on the court rule as we saw multiple examples of it.
Sligo were the better team in UCD for much of the game, but with Irish international John Carroll sidelined through injury, their depth wasn’t there, and they tired in the fourth quarter only scoring 12 points.
UCD’s ability to rotate heavily eventually won them a game they probably shouldn’t have won. In Eanna, with Sean Jenkins out, the new rule ensured there were greater opportunities for Cathal O’Sullivan and Adam Charles who both grabbed it and scored 14 and 18 respectively in a win over Vincents.
Depth of contributors is going to be a key factor this year, and we are already seeing it.
Tralee have bounced back from a week 1 loss with back-to-back home wins. They have always been hard to beat at home, although some of that was the brilliant atmosphere in the Complex. They pulled out another good win though in MTU with their core veterans and Americans stepping up for the second straight week.
Demons won’t be happy with their start to the year with their only win so far against bottom placed Neptune. I expect Kyle Hosford to be back soon who helps settle everything, and there is an expectation that a change in American is on the way too ahead of them first double-header weekend next week.
With Killester coming to the Mardyke and then a trip to UCD, it won’t be easy, but Demons are capable of righting the ship quickly.
Defending champions Killester have answered another question in their hunt for a three peat with a commanding 13-point win on the road against Brunell.
Killester set out to shut down Maddie Cluse and did a great job limiting the American to just nine points.
Brunell will be disappointed as they were up eight midway through 2nd quarter but they couldn’t push on and Killester eventually took control of the game. 61 points at home isn’t good enough for a title contender and Brunell will need to find a spark to get their offense going a little bit more.
From a Killester perspective it’s starting to look ominous for the rest of the league. Audrey Holden is a nice complementary piece to Sam Haiby and experienced veterans around them, I’m not sure how many teams have the weapons to beat them in a big game.
For now,they sit 3-0 at the top, alongside last year’s beaten finalist St Pauls who had another good weekend beating Portlaoise.
Rooted to the bottom of the table after three games, Liffey Celtics are struggling.
The good news for the Kildare side was that Sorcha Tiernan returned from her ankle injury, but there just isn’t enough depth there at the moment, and when their Americans are getting outscored 47-18 it’s a recipe for disaster. They don’t have an easy road ahead over the next month either, which will concern Coach Hillary Nets.
Glanmire have had a tough start themselves, but Jewel Watkins helped get them a key win to jumpstart their campaign. Watkins had 33 and had she not missed seven free throws it could have been even more impressive.
A familiar face returned for the Wildcats as American Jasmine Walker rejoined the team. It was their existing American Alysa Frescas though that stole the headlines hitting eight threes on her way to 32 points.
Despite hitting all of those long-range shots, it was a layup with just over a second to go from Frescas that won the game for Waterford. It’s an important win for Wildcats, who haven’t fully got going yet but are still picking up important wins.
For Meteors, the loss will be disappointing but in the range of ‘good losses’ a team can have, this is probably one. They are finding their chemistry as a new team and yet are already very competitive with the top teams. They will need a bit more scoring to regularly beat the top teams, but they aren’t far off.
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