Munster Express Online

Waterford’s Bausch and Lomb Wildcats travel to the National Basketball Arena in Dublin this Saturday seeking back-to-back success in the Under-20 National Cup final.

Their opponents once again are their big Munster rivals Glanmire, who Wildcats beat last year in an epic decider. Wildcats, however, have lost three quality players from last year’s all-conquering team, whereas the opposition have had a significant addition in Galway girl and current UCC student, Claire Rockall, who recently returned from the States where she was playing top colleges basketball.

This would seem to tip the scales in favour of the Cork side, but speaking recently to Wildcats coach Tommy O’Mahony he believes his side, with a perfect performance, “will come out on top”. If the coach’s confidence filters down to his players then there is no doubt Wildcats supporters can travel in great numbers with high hopes of a repeat of last year’s result.

As all of Wildcats panel play regularly in the Superleague this season, this experience should be a big asset to them. There is nothing like games against top opposition to show a coach the quality or potential of a player ha has in his panel.

O’Mahony assists at Superleague level and he would have taken stock of how his players have performed on the big stage with the U20 cup in mind.

Well now cometh the hour, and let’s hope we see more silverware cross the river Suir this Saturday night.

Superleague

Last Saturday’s Superleague home clash with Dublin side Killester proved to be the perfect preparation game for this weekend’s U-20 cup.

Yes, Wildcats wanted to win t he Superleague but once could hardly blame coaches if they had one eye on the U-20 cup final. Many of those involved this Saturday performed really well for long spells, but they left the game slip away from them at a time when those looking on could only see one winner and that was Wildcats.

Sure they had a shaky start trailing 2-9 after four minutes but soon they got it together giving Wildcats supporters something to cheer about and there were many present to see the team of the future perform. Wildcats played some excellent basketball passing at speed and running the fast break to great effect giving them a 17-10 lead after the first quarter.

Wildcats went further ahead and at one time led by 14 points but back came Killester, gradually eating into Wildcat’s lead to reduce the deficit to 36-32 at the break. It was not so much that Wildcats did anything wrong at this stage, in fact both teams were at the top of their respective games in that second quarter but Killester did finish most scoring chances, whereas Wildcats might have done better.

From the restart Wildcats added to their tally through their top scorer Cathy Kavanagh and led by 8 points. Sadly Wildcats failed to score for the remainder of the third quarter with the exception of one basket from Elaine Kennington. Killester, however, were gradually doing the business and were rewarded with a 50-52 lead going into the final quarter.

Killester forged further ahead through American Claudia Frank to lead 56-50. Suddenly Mel Stone blasted two of her trademark 3-pointers to level the game and we had fireworks once again.

But the Wildcats spark soon fizzled out as we saw way too many silly fouls and crazy passing when cooler heads were needed.

The Dubliner were quiet happy to go to the line and time after time notch up handy points with good free shooting. Christine O’Gorman did her level best to save the day with two late baskets but too little, too late as the damage was done and what looked like a well deserved win for Wildcats turned into a major disappointment.

Lessons learned

No doubt there will be many lessons learned by these young Wildcats. If one was to be critical at stages in the game and previous games this season, they were too slow to step to the pass, too soft when it came to grabbing the ball and too late to dive and grab the loose ball.

Soft is not a title that any player or team like to be targeted with but sadly that is something the players have to put right themselves, and make no mistake they will as they are very young for this level and really should be judged in three years’ time.

There were 54 fouls in last Saturdays game and Wildcats had 33 of them – Killester scored 28 points on the free-throw line and Wildcats lost by 10. Lesson learned?