Murphy looking forward to ‘special day’ for Ballina

These are heady days in St Muredach’s College as the Ballina secondary school looks to pull off a monumental feat.

With its senior basketball team having won the U19 ‘B’ league and cup double last year, they are looking to repeat the trick at the ‘A’ grade in their first year competing at this level. Almost 12 months since beating Presentation De La Salle from Bagnalstown in Co Carlow in the ‘B’ Cup final, they now face St Mary's CBS of Portlaoise in next Tuesday’s U19 ‘A’ final at the National Basketball Arena, looking to go back-to-back.

Barry Murphy, who quite incredibly has coached basketball in the school for 36 years, began seeing the potential of this current group in September 2022.

“We had a very young senior team, only one Leaving Cert, one fourth year, the rest were doing junior cert. It just happened to be a very young team. We gave a good account of ourselves that year, we got to the regional final and Summerhill beat us by two or three after overtime. We were missing two players that day with injuries.

“We then beat them four or five weeks before the end of the league by 10 points or something, so I just got a sneaky feeling that there could be a team for the next year or two,” reflects Murphy.

“Last year was a very young senior team. We went into the cup for the first time for a number of years, just to maybe see what was around outside our area, see could we compete, and it snowballed from there really.

“Last year was unbelievable, 13 games or 14 games, whatever we won, we won two All-Irelands and the regional final. It was a phenomenal year.” 

A major factor in the resurrection of St Muredach’s as a force on the basketball court was the return of Ballina Braves club at senior level, operating as Merry Monk in the Basketball Ireland Development League. Key members of the club such as Ronan O’Malley and chairman Kevin McHale were members of St Muredach’s last national success, when they won the All-Ireland U19 ‘B’ Schools Cup in 2007. The two have given much service on and off the court in recent years to help the future of the sport while Jamie Forde, another member of the 2007 winning team, and GAA and basketball dual star Ronan McGarrity have helped various teams down the years.

“You have to build from the bottom again and then, coincided with the last two years with the lads doing so well in the schools, there’s a bit of a buzz around the place again. There's decent numbers at the games, which is lovely to see, and a lot of young kids playing basketball, a lot of good lads coaching,” says Barry Murphy.

St Muredach’s had carried their momentum of last year into the new season and were unbeaten in the league and cup until last month when they were beaten by local rivals Gortnor Abbey in the North West regional league final in Castlebar.

That loss came five days before their cup semi-final in Tallaght against Dublin powerhouse Coláiste Eanna, who have won the U19 ‘A’ league title three years running. But St Muredach’s bounced back to produce their best performance of the season to defeat Éanna 76-71 to reach the final, and there was no happier man than Barry Murphy on the day, leaping across the court, pumping his fists in delight.

But had they not had the pain of that defeat to Gortnor Abbey, would they be in this position?

“I don't think we'd have beaten (Éanna) if we had beaten Gortnor Abbey,” admitted Barry. “It's a daft thing to say now but the defeat probably did us the world of good because we came in again on Sunday and trained and there was a buzz back in the team again. We were a little bit stale for a while beforehand.

“Then we went to Dublin and we knew what we were up against a fine side, a really, really good team, really well coached, with three or four lads at the moment either with the Irish under-18 or under-16 set-up, so they're not bad players. Other lads, one or two of the of their Leaving Certs, really good players that are playing under-20 as well at National League level.

“We've probably put ourselves in the spotlight because we probably beat the best school team in the country, so with that comes pressure whereas this time last year we went in under the radar really – we were in the final before people knew about us. This year was different. That win put us into the spotlight.” 

Had the talk of the unbeaten run perhaps got to this young side prior to losing to their rivals from Crossmolina?

“Honestly, we never spoke about it,” offered Barry. “Maybe it was affecting some fellas, it's hard to know, and it probably was, but Gortnor Abbey are a good side. We played them a few weeks before that and beat them fairly well in Crossmolina one morning.

“They have three or four very good players. You have to be on your top of the game to beat them. We just weren't on it that day in Castlebar and they were.

“The next game was huge for us, like, and, you know, we had to just kind of get back on the horse. I was glad that the game was only five or six days away because if you had to wait for a month, you wouldn't know what it might have done.” 

Barry Murphy is expecting a tough final against their Laois opponents and said it will take ‘a similar performance’ like against Coláiste Éanna to beat St Mary’s, but he hopes they can deliver on one of the biggest days for the school and the town.

“It's a special day from the basketball point of view in the school. It's a special day for the town as well, that the school in the town are playing in an ‘A’ final and again it brings back all those basketball memories, fellas of my generation and the great supporters that we had. Everyone is buzzing about it and it would be absolutely unreal if we can win this game.”