East Glendalough School

Senior Boys’ Basketball

My time at East Glendalough School has certainly had its highs and lows. In my six years at this great school Ihave experienced wonderful joys from part taking in school sports and more importantly representing EGS nationally. Through the years I have played on both the schools rugby and football teams but basketball was undoubtedly the perfect sport for me. With the school having such a renowned reputation for basketball, Imade it my goal from a young age in 1st and 2nd year to become as skilful as my predecessors.

It wasn’t until fifth year that the competitiveness reached its peak. In my second last year I had the privilege to play with Matthew Condell, one of the best basketball players this school has ever produced. I remember well we played two crucial South East Regional League matches against Borris College. The first game was an all out brilliant performance from the squad but the second match, which we had to win to become South East Regional Champions, proved to be a lot harder than we imagined. After battling it out both physically and mentally, we came out the victors with a narrow win of 23 – 20.

With all our wins in the South East Regional League we progressed to the All Ireland Finals in Limerick. The new facilities in University Limerick were second to none in Ireland as they were brand new. We competed very well but unfortunately after two tight margin defeats our winning streak came to an end. That experience for me though was the best in my whole six years here at EGS. We were up against top class oppositions from all over the country but we were proud that we got that far and competed.

This school year started off very well when I was nominated captain and my good friend Kiefer McGinn vice captain. Our first game involved the hammering of St.Conleth’s College and our second against De Le Salle, Churchtown.

In this game we were up against a large squad of what seemed like Gaelic football players rather than basketballers. With this game it proved to be our team effort (even though the majority of the team were quite small) that shone through as we battled long and hard to overcome the opposition by 28 – 22.

Sadly this proved my last ever game representing my school as Itore ligaments in my left ankle due to an unsavoury tackle against Marian College Dublin. Ihave no regrets however as things like this happen often in competitive sports and things don’t always go your way.

After losing that game at UCD, our final qualifier for another All Ireland was against Blackrock College. Unfortunately again we lost after a very poor performance.

I wish the future blood of East Glendalough Basketball the very best in their challenging years ahead of them.

Merlin Becker

U16 Boys’ Basketball

This year the East Glendalough Under-16 Boys basketball team played in the South Dublin League for the first time. Even though we were faced with a big step up in class we more than held our own. We qualified from our group in first place and undefeated – winning some matches comfortably – putting us through to the quarter-finals. Our quarter final match was tight, even though we were a better team, our opponents put us under a lot of pressure. In the end our team started to play and we sealed the win in the last quarter. Our semi-final match was against Colaiste Phadraig from Lucan. The match was disappointing and we didn’t play nearly as well as we could. The game was close until the last quarter when the opposition pulled away, ending the game with a large margin and ending our season. Despite the disappointment of losing in the semi-final, this was a good season and we are very grateful to our coach Mr. McGettigan for all he has done for us. There was a lot of promise in this young team and the experience of playing in the higher league will stand to us in years to come.

Kyle Bradshaw

2nd Year Boys’ Basketball

This year the second year basketball team was entered into the south Dublin basketball league. Despite having only played one match the year before we managed to reach the final! We managed to win our first game even though we performed terribly. We played better in the second match, but still we felt we weren’t playing to our full potential. Our next match was against Dublin Oak Academy, one of the best teams in the league. The team performed brilliantly and Shane Farrar scored a basket in the last minute to win the match by one point for us. We thought the next match against Holy Child Killiney would be easier, but as the game advanced we realized this wasn’t going to be as easy as we had anticipated. Shane’s last minute heroics were called upon again to win by one point. After losing to Presentation Bray (one of the best teams in Ireland) we had two matches left to play: Clonkeen and St. Killians. Thankfully, we won these matches convincingly enough, and so finished second in the league. Since we came 2nd, we ended up playing 3rd place Dublin Oak in the semi-final. The match started on the Tuesday after the Easter break. After three quarters we were eight points down with eight minutes to play. Somehow we managed another comeback - this time Andrew Yague scoring the winning basket (not Shane this time!). We knew we would be facing Presentation Bray in the final. Not surprisingly, we didn’t win this match, but at least we improved from a 40 point to a 20 point deficit. All in all it was an exciting year of basketball, and we are looking forward to next years challenges.

Tom Mc Hugh, Form 2

1st Year Boys’ Basketball

This season has been very successful for the EGS 1st Year Basketball team. We’ve gone through some highs and lows, but overall it has been a great year and everyone has come on in leaps and bounds.

At the start of the year, most of us didn’t know how to shoot, lay the ball up or even the basic rules and positions of basketball. Our first couple of months weren’t great and most people were just not going to training or putting in the work. So, Mr. McGettigan, our coach, got the team together one games class to have a talk about what we were going to do. He pretty much told us to come to training or be dropped. With that, the team became more focused, and we worked hard with the goal of reaching the Cup-Final at the end of the season. We had matches against St. Andrews, Pres. Bray, Holy Child and one or two more, and eventually reached the final after only loss.

Without doubt the most exciting and closest matches we played this year was the Cup Semi-final against St. Andrews. We had played them once before and beaten them, but this time it was different. We got the first few scores of the match and were leading by about eight points. But then they went on a scoring streak and notched up six or seven baskets in a row, so that we found ourselves behind in the third quarter. We managed to pull back a few points, but with seven minutes to go we were still seven points down. Coach McGettigan set up a new formation, and it worked. We clawed our way back to level the game, and took it into over-time. Here again, St Andrew’s took the lead and, with about 8 seconds to go, we were a point ahead. But Luke Daunt-Smyth scored a great basket just before the final whistle to win it for us 23-22 and we went mad! It was a great win and we were all delighted to have made such an amazing comeback.

The Final was quite different. We were playing All-Ireland finalists Presentation Bray, and were definitely up against it. At times during the game it looked like we might get near them, but it was never really going to happen and they ran out winners by about 25 points. We weren’t too disappointed as we had had a great season and hadn’t been expecting to reach the final, never mind win it. So all in all it’s been a very good year for the team.

Well done to all the team and thanks to our Coach, Mr McGettigan for helping us to play as well as we can.

Stuart O’Callaghan,