Kinevane on brink of Super League glory with UCD
TALLAGHT man Scott Kinevane will be hoping to pick up a third senior league medal when he lines out for UCD Marian in their Super League title play-off against Pyrobel Killester this Saturday in the National Basketball Arena.
Having twice won the coveted prize along with a National Cup in a golden period with UL Eagles, the highly-rated point guard knows what it takes to go all the way at the top level of the game.
Tallaght's Scott Kinevane
He and the Belfield side did suffer defeat in this season’s National Cup decider against Temple-ogue after which a wobble in the league followed.
But they steadied the ship, thanks in no small measure to huge wins over the likes of Garvey’s Tralee Warriors and Swords Thunder, eventually finishing level with Killester and setting up a title match this weekend.
“If you’d said at the start of the season we’d be in a play-off for the league title, we would have taken your hand off for that,” Kinevane told The Echo.
“I’ve been there [with UCD] for the last two years and Ioannis [Liapa-kis, the Coach] has been there for the last five and I know he’s been building the team towards this.
“The lads in the team are at that age now- late 20’s and early 30’s. We feel this is the time for it.
Huge sacrifices
“We train three times a week. The lads have put in huge sacrifices for this in terms of time with family and girlfriends and hopefully now we’ll get back what we put in. We feel we left that Cup behind so hopefully we can win the league,” he said.
Having played at the top level since the tender age of 16, Kinevane has witnessed first-hand a real improvement in the competitiveness of the Super League.
“You see now that that gap between the top and bottom four is not as big as it used to be,” he pointed out. “I mean we had a very tough match against Belfast away, which is a hard place to go and get points.
“We have a good base of Irish players in our team and I feel that Irish players have improved in the league over the last few years.
“The game here used to be dominated by what American you had in the team and it was just a case of get the ball to him, but not anymore.”
Victory for UCD this weekend will see former Templeogue man and current Marian assistant coach Conor James also pick up a medal.
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