High hopes for Brave boys as new season arrives

Ballina Braves Basketball Club have taken another big step ahead of the the upcoming season with confirmation that an under-20 team will compete in the National League and Cup.

Once more, they will play under the Team Merry Monk Ballina banner, as they continue their partnership with the popular Ballina bar and restaurant.

“We're very excited to be here, third year now with the seniors, starting up again, and this year we have a team in the U20 National League, so we're very excited about that,” head coach Derek Cunningham told the Western People. “We were down in Cork for a pre-season tournament and it went well for us.” The U20s opening league game of the season will be on October 20 against Ballincollig.

“The young players have worked very hard over the summer. They were in the gym and did a strength and conditioning programme. Paul Barrett from Functional Fitness facilitated that and a big thanks to him,” said Cunningham.

“We're excited about the season and there's a couple of rule changes coming up for the BIDL which I think will suit us and a lot of the clubs similar to us.

“One of the main rules is that every team on game day now has to have five under-24 players. There's more of a focus on younger players. Half our team are well under 24 so the young players will get plenty of games between the senior and the under-20s. I think between the seniors and the 20s we'll have nine home games this season, the under 20s mostly on a Sunday afternoon and the seniors on Saturday night.” 

Sponsor Joe Lavelle of Merry Monk is delighted once again to pledge his support for the club.

“I'm happy to have the opportunity to come back again to see what has been done with basketball in Ballina. It brought such joy to our town here that for the few years it was missing, it was badly missed.

“But it's great to see the senior team coming through again and the under-20s again. It's brilliant to see and of course I pledge my support to the basketball club here, to the Ballina Braves. It's only right and fitting that everyone in the town should support it, so I'm delighted.” 

Team Merry Monk will be looking to make a big impact in all competitions this year but after a long period where there was no senior basketball in the North Mayo town, a long-term view is also being taken to ensure the club, and players are there well into the future.

“We want to go as far as we can, we want to be successful, but at the meat of it is that it's all about the players that are here. Regardless of how far we go or how much success we have, it's about the members playing.

“We had targets last year, we were very unfortunate that some of the older guys got injured which kind of set us back a bit. But this year we want to try and do as well as we can, win as many games as we can.

“There's more clubs in the BIDL now, some newer clubs have come in, we're going away to Limerick, Cork, Galway, teams like that, so we're looking forward to playing them. But this season now, a lot of the young fellas have grown up a bit, become stronger, a lot more experience, so we're really looking to get results this year.” 

Club chairman Kevin McHale said: “We're trying to scale the club this year. I think we've got 250 members this year and I think we were about 150 last year. There's not enough gym hours for us. It's massive. We're very lucky with the people that we have. Most of these guys now help out and train the underage, which is great. It's all about creating a community, creating a club. That’s what we’re trying to do.

“One thing I've noticed that, athletically, guys are at a level now that not a lot of teams can compete with us. We ran teams off the court last weekend, which is great, you know. Obviously the lads are doing very well with the schools. We’ve Gortnor Abbey and Muredach’s schools both competing at ‘A’ division which I don't think has ever happened before.

“There's so many people that are putting in a lot of work. You've Ronan O’Malley, the club captain, he's coaching our under-16 team. It's all about connection and making sure people feel connected about basketball in the town. We lost the excitement for a few years but there's a lot of excitement now at the moment so it's great.” 

A trio of their young stars, Conor Burke, Mark Cunningham and Brian Donohue were part of St Muredach’s sensational All-Ireland League and Cup U19 ‘B’ double and those experiences of playing the some of the best in the country will have only helped their progress and development.

“They’ll have learned an awful lot from that. They won the double, they went unbeaten for the whole season which was fantastic and they were up in Tallaght playing in the National Arena which was a great experience for them.” 

You can get your season tickets for all the Team Merry Monk Ballina home games across senior and under-20 for €50. A full list of home fixtures are available on the Ballina Braves social media pages.