Men's Super League: C&S Neptune hold nerve to make final

C&S Neptune inflicted a first home defeat of the season on Tradehouse Central Ballincollig to reach the InsureMyVan.ie Super League final, something which C&S Neptune player/coach Colin O'Reilly hailed as "a huge achievement".

Tradehouse Central Ballincollig got off to a great start and led 25-13 at the end of the opening quarter, but C&S Neptune got themselves back into contention and trailed by six by half-time, 39-33.

Tradehouse Central Ballincollig's lead was whittled down to a single point, 58-57, by the end of the third, before a strong fourth quarter saw C&S Neptune pull clear to win 92-75 and reach their second final of the season, having made the InsureMyHouse.ie Pat Duffy National Cup final in January.

O’Reilly was elated afterwards: "To beat the top seed on the road is a huge achievement for this group. They dominated the first 15 minutes of the game and had a huge 17-point lead, but there was no panic on our end.

"We had started to see a few things working and knew that if we could get back in contention that we had the experience to close out knockout games on the road.

"The game swung in the fourth, where we made consecutive 3s down the stretch, which gave us the lead and we held our composure to see it out from the free throw line."

Nil Sabata was C&S Neptune’s leading scorer on 21, backed up by Miles Washington (14), Ireland international Roy Downey (14) and Richard Gittens (13).

Andre Nation was the game’s top scorer, on 26 points, while Tradehouse Central Ballincollig also had notable contributions from Ireland international Adrian O'Sullivan (19) and Milorad Sedlarevic (13).

Although naturally disappointed, Tradehouse Central Ballincollig head coach Kieran O’Sullivan praised the efforts of his players, after