Adrian O’Sulivan, C&S UCC Demons guard
It’s fair to say we’ve spent more time on the Dublin road than in our home gym in the first half of this season’s campaign. Having said that, we’ve put ourselves in a great position as we approach Christmas. From the moment we started back in July, Colin has had us buy into the up tempo and high intensity style of play again this year.
We began with the derby in Neptune, a game where the crowd probably would rather us play later in the year as both teams were quite a distance from playing their best basketball. However coming off the win, we knew it would stand to us as Neptune isn’t the easiest place to come out on top. Next up was the trip up North, an impressive first half performance saw us through, which was the first win of six weekends on the trot away from home. With the long road trips our team began to gel and our character was definitely tested in our double header on the third weekend into the season. Away to the reigning league champions no matter what time of year was always going to be a dog fight. We pulled out a hard fought win as we locked in on defence which to date, has been the winning of many of our games. The following day, with sore bodies and heavy legs, we took to our home floor against a talented swords thunder team, who right now have their eyes on the league title having only lost one game. In this game, our talent and depth came through to give us the edge in the end. Having come out on top in a double header as tough as that that early in the season, we felt was very rewarding. Confidence was high in our camp and we sprung out to an early lead against DCU and grinded out another away trip win in UCD which left us at 6-0 before we began our quest to repeat the cup title. Like last year, we gave ourselves a nice lead in the first leg. Next up was Templeogue, again another away trip; this time to a team whose record does not reflect how good they really are. This win was one of the more satisfying wins of the season as we played some nice basketball down the stretch and our depth definitely carried us over the line. Having another good win away from home behind us, it was great to put in a nice home performance against UL the following weekend. This brought us to the second leg of the Cup, back home again the and understanding what had happened last year in our first round cup tie, we took nothing for granted and finished out the game well. Right now we see ourselves undefeated at the top of the league and back in another Cup semi.
So far, we’ve given the fans some excitement, and it’s great to have the majority of our league games after Christmas in front of our home crowd. We are where need to be, but the most important part of our season is yet to come. They do not hand out trophies before Christmas and it’s a matter of finishing what we’ve started and take it week by week. We’ve a great opportunity to have a fantastic season, but It is all yet to play for. We are looking forward to the challenge ahead and we hope to give the fans something to cheers about come 2015.