Lions to roar into men’s National League ranks
By Stephen Leonard
DUBLIN Lions will, this year, take their very first step into Men’s National League basketball.
The Clondalkin club, which is based in Colaiste Bhride, was recently given the green light for entry into the second tier of Irish men’s basketball after a very successful run by many of their senior men and underage teams.
Fielding men’s teams from Division One right through to Division Four along with Under 20, Under 18 and Under 16 sides, Lions are eager to step it up a level especially given the competition from other clubs as chairman Mick White explained.
“Over the years we’ve been losing players to the likes of Liffey Celtics and Templeogue and we never intended to be a feeder club” he said.
“We want to be able to hold on to the talent because it can be very demoralising when you’ve been developing a player for seven or eight years only for other clubs to get the benefits of that.
“You can’t really blame the good kids who want to compete at a higher level, so by doing this [entering a team into the National League] hopefully we’ll be able to hold on to them.
“There’s great excitement in the club right now.
“Dublin Lions is a family-friendly club. We’re not cut-throat like some other clubs. We want to do it together and bring players up through the ranks.
“We will have to bring in some players from outside to strengthen up the team, but ideally we hope that 70 percent will be Lions players” he concluded.
Certainly Lions have already enjoyed their fair of success at various levels of men’s basketball.
Their Under 16s lost only once en route to a Dublin League and Cup double while also reaching the All-Ireland Cup semi finals where they were eventually undone by Templeogue.
The Under 20s reached the divisional play-offs where they suffered a narrow defeat to St Vincent’s while the Men’s Division One side also made the top four final where they came undone against Killester.
Moving up to National League basketball is a positive step for the club which is the product of the amalgamation of Clondalkin Lakers, Lucan BC and Rathcoole Rockets some years back.
Taking their place in the Northern Conference of the National League, the team will face a long season with 18 games between group and cross conference matches alone.
Currently the club comprises of 23 active teams and they plan to increase that to 28 for next season.
