O’Neill refusing to get carried away as Star hit the heights

Confidence: Darren O’Neill BELFAST Star may be sitting at the top of the All Ireland Superleague for the first time in a decade but coach Darren O’Neill is adamant it is much too premature for anyone to be dreaming of a shot at title glory.

After back-to-back victories, O’Neill had said he expected DCU Saints to offer a more serious test for the Belfast men but they were shredded in the first half on Saturday by a lethal cocktail of spiteful defence and clinical offence. Star led 45-25 and never looked back, even allowing themselves a sloppy fourth quarter to run out.

Despite their dominance for three quarters of the game when it seemed O’Neill could have sat back and lit up a fine cigar, he insists there is no time to relax with one of the big beasts of the league, Swords, their next opponents on Saturday night.

“Three wins from three is very pleasing and we did a very good job against DCU, particularly defensively, but nobody can afford to get carried away at this stage. It’s far too early to be talking about us as title contenders. We’ve a lot more to prove,” said O’Neill, who was able to start new American Garret Galvin.

“Going into the game with DCU I wanted to see how we looked against a team that is seen as mid-table or slightly above, much like how we would be perceived and we did a very good job and that gives us a lot of confidence going into the game with Swords who we know are one of the top teams in the league.”

If Star controlled the game from early on, O’Neill’s main worry seemed to be with the lack of a scoreboard on Saturday night.

“Due to a wi-fi problems there was no display of the score or the time so the score was constantly being called out over the loud speaker but because you can’t see the score it can play tricks in your mind and put you on edge. But overall I was very happy with the way we controlled the game.”

Aidan Quinn top scored on 19 points, while American Ryan Oliver had 18.