BuzzerBeater Forums

First off, thanks for joining the discussion, and your welcome to join the discord community.

I do have a couple of things to comment on what you said.

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Maybe it’s time to shake things up a bit. A bit of fresh blood in the management or a new approach could do the team good. There’s no denying the effort that’s gone into things so far, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take a hard look at what could be improved.

Unfortunately, this can also have a massive negative effect, and this has happened to both NTs very recently, where newer managers took over the NTs and probably got overwhelmed, then just abandoned the team. An NT job is not to be taken lightly, and I would first suggest things to the current NT bosses, either in DMs, the forum, or discord. Each time it happens it sets the NTs back about 6 or 7 seasons, and makes the next 3-5 seasons far more difficult in terms of the the teams they draw the in NT tournaments. I'm very skeptical about managers with little or no experience being put in to the role when we've only really just recovered from the NT being abandoned a few season ago.

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Also, there have been a few strange decisions around the national team squad both in terms of who gets called up and who actually gets minutes.

The first thing to know is that the Irish NT team seems to have a lot of C/PF compared to any other position. The Guard positions are something of a problem for the NT an has been for a while. Again, if you have questions over why a player isn't playing, it can be good to ask the NT. There may be a reason for it, like a weakness in a players game, or the coach using a specific tactic that plays away from a players strengths - there is no point in using them in that situation if they could be exploited or are gonna underperform.

I know the current NT selection is an experimental one to have a look at new players as the NT manager said he was gonna do it on the discord.

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The first thing I recommend to anyone is to join the discord, the more people we can have there, the more ideas we can have to help each other and our NTs.

Where could I find a discord link? I would love to join it

I'll DM you with it.

Edit: The reason we use DMs is to make sure we don't have people impersonating others on the board.

Last edited by Rockets at 7/10/2025 9:02:57 AM

Hi all,
Apologies for not responding sooner – there was a death in the family and it took my attention away. I had requested a discord invite earlier, but by the time I got around to joining, the link had expired.
Anyway, I want to make it absolutely clear that I have no intention of harming our current coach, Dublinman. I fully respect the fact that he's dedicating his time and doing his best for the team – that’s commendable.
One of the reasons I started thinking about a possible coaching change (and I want to stress again, this is not meant as a personal attack) is that his club team hasn't had much success either. They barely made it past the Top 32 in the Cup – which is basically the number of active teams – and haven’t made much of a mark in the Super League either. Ideally, the NT coach should have some kind of winning pedigree. (For context: I’ve played before, and in my first full season back I’ve already reached the Top 4 in the cup.) But I won’t ignore the fact that he has brought one important thing to the national team: stability.
That said, there have been quite a few puzzling decisions around squad selection. There are several players who should’ve been included but weren’t – and others who were picked without merit. The same goes for lineup choices. I’m familiar with many players’ skills, and I also look at ratings. But let’s forget about past seasons and talk about this one.
We’ve played two matches so far – both against much stronger teams. One of them we gave a scare, so on paper it might look like we did well. But in my opinion, this season has been a disaster so far – from almost every perspective.
Israel – Let’s be honest, even their weakest players are arguably better than our best. And yet, we still tried to push for a result? Why? We had zero chance of anything, and all it did was hurt our team spirit from the very start. That was the only “achievement.”
Then came Latvia, and the poor decision against Israel came back to haunt us. Latvia is also a much stronger team. But with just a bit of tactical thinking, it was obvious they would rest against us – a much weaker side – after their opening match against Slovenia, which looked like a full vs. full or normal vs. normal clash. They were always going to take it easier against us to recover for tougher games ahead. As a result, they didn’t push hard and we almost pulled off a win. Maybe we even could have won – had we not blown everything in the Israel match. A massive tactical blunder.
One of my biggest issues over the past few years has been the complete lack of imagination in the rotation. We have several multi-skilled players, yet everyone’s played the same position every game – no variation at all. It feels like there’s no opponent scouting, no creativity. This season we’ve seen the exact same rotation every match, and I honestly started wondering if the squad was just set on auto-pilot after the election. Or is that actually the tactic? What’s the point of friendlies if we don’t use them to test different setups? But instead we just do the same thing.
Speaking of rotation: I don’t know the skillsets of Bradley or Haverty, but I did see O’Rourke when he was transferred and I’m convinced he’s the best C in Ireland (unless we’re specifically going for a close-range offence). C is clearly his best position. Yet he’s being played as a PF regularly – and underperforms there. The engine doesn’t favour him at PF. Has nobody noticed this?? Again, there’s zero experimentation here, which I don’t understand.
Now we have Alexey Lyons in the rotation (also as PF), and based on his skills he shouldn’t even be near the court – maybe only if we’re really desperate for rebounds.

And the most baffling thing: our highest-paid player, Cummins, isn’t just not starting – he hasn’t even been named for a match yet? This isn’t last season when he was being sold for $1,000 a week and in poor form. The U21 coach has managed him well. It makes no sense. If he had played, the Latvia game could have gone differently again.
The squad composition is also poor. McGee and O’Hagan are not ready yet. Keeping “mascot” players like Costello last season was also questionable. Holmes has no place in the squad based on skills – he should never be on the court in a competitive match. I assume he’s there just because he plays for the coach’s club, which isn’t ideal. In fact, it might be better to leave the last roster spot empty at the start of the season in case of injuries or form drops. The end of the roster should be made up of specialists – someone like Sylvester Cooney, who could come in for specific scenarios as a backup for O’Rourke and shut down opposing centers. That would be a much more useful option than Holmes.
Players like Magauran, Castle, and McEvoy are already strong and developing well – they deserve a place in the squad now and even more so going forward.
Finally, let’s talk about the future. Building for the future should absolutely be part of the NT coach’s responsibilities. The U21 coach’s job ends once a player ages out –while post-U21 tracking could be done, it isn’t. I personally manage several NT-calibre young talents, and there’s been no communication about coordinating training plans with the NT setup (which, to be fair, Dublinman may not have much experience with). But without that kind of cooperation, we’re building on sand. Just picking whoever is available and hoping for the best won’t work long term.
Maybe I’ve worded things a bit harshly – if so, I apologise, it’s not meant to offend anyone. But honestly, these first three weeks have been below zero in terms of performance. I’m really struggling to understand what’s going on.

Ok, let’s start from the most serious accusations about Holmes, who in your opinion is in the NT only because he is my club player, which is completely far from reality, because Holmes was an NT player even before I was the national team coach, and I got Holmes only 70 days ago. Based on his full skillset, Holmes is still like our 5-6 player in PG-SG position. But according to all your logic he is totally useless and cannot even be close to playing. But if we open eyes and stop pointing fingers into empty clouds, we would see that last season this player played only one game, but it looks like I play him every week :) Of course, we keep silent about your player Brian, who is also in NT roster, because that is convenient.
Let’s move on… it’s always easy to make conclusions when you look at things only on surface. Same as you talk about my team and your team achievements, but to give you some context, a few seasons ago I stepped down by my own choice because I started to coach Jermaine, Donal and Casper, and not in a single season in super league I had intention to fight for league title or cup. But nothing strange when your whole text is based on achievements and how we are close to Latvia just because of one player, and that only shows that you actually don’t understand how big gap Ireland has from top 50 teams.

I should also mention about rotation. :) You say in last few seasons there was no rotation at all, I don’t even get how you can write such statement when it’s enough to open last season’s team stats and see that 26 players were used and tested, such statements just make me laugh. The season before that 22 players were used. The whole idea, which I communicated, is to give young players and those close to NT level a chance, give their coaches motivation so they want to train them and aim for NT spot. But often, like I see, we hit the same wall because of your statements, where result means everything, even when you just don’t understand how far we are from top 50 teams. Your talks about beating Latvia only proves you don’t understand where we are as a country.

Also, I will repeat again, players like Costello, Castle, McGee are kept and sometimes used to motivate coaches, to show trust.

I fully understand the situation and where we are and really it does not matter if we fight against Israel or Latvia, because for now we have no chance against such teams.

About this season. same as you last 3-4 weeks I was super busy and missed chance to prepare the team and rotate it, I admit my mistakes and I don’t pretend it was accidental. It is how it is, now there will be more time and rotation again. By the way sorry for your loss.

And I just want to wish you good luck and start looking at things more wide, it’s not only about winning, especially when you cannot win. these elections were my last, you can candidate in next ones and show class how we can beat Latvia and other similar teams with just a couple of player changes and I HOPE IT HAPPENS! About discord link, I will send you in PM.

And for the end. As a NT manager I have full rights to choose players I want to play and use, once you will be a NT manager you will be able to do that too :) Ofc, you have right to hate it or to love it :)

Hello everyone!
I’m not really deep into this NT business, I only came across this by chance and saw the back-and-forth that’s been going on.
To be honest with you, I haven’t even been watching the NT matches, only noticed now and then on my players’ profiles that a game had been played.
Now, since one of my lads got mentioned too, I also noticed that O’Rourke is always being played as a PF, even though he’d be much better as a C. But I suppose there are plenty of good Cs around, so maybe there’s a reason for it… still, there’s barely any rotation going on in that regard.
But what really caught my eye now is that we’ve lost every single match – even against the 89th ranked team.
Now, I won’t pretend to know how strong other national teams are, but this doesn’t sound too good. And it’s plain to see that it’s mostly down to the coach not giving a toss about the team… hasn’t even set a lineup halfway through the season.
I’ll admit, I don’t usually vote either – mainly because I don’t really know anyone, only been messaging with one person recently. But honestly if someone’s going to ignore the NT at this level, why even bother running in the elections? Especially when the whole point of the conversation here was about neglected teams before, I don’t think it gets much more neglected than this.

I don't have time to address everything, but I'd like to address one thing. That both Dublin Yetis and Irish Celtics are both trying to claim - O'Rourke is the best C in Ireland and he is best played as a C, and should be played at C for the NT.

First thing you should always be aware of is what type of players the entire NT has, and then you can decide if he is a good C or not for our NT. One fact is that our entire NT isn't wonderful or consistent as regards shooting. I've mentioned this before in this thread -> our G's are not good enough. We don't even have great SF's. As a result, our team is going to miss a lot of shots and we really need to make the most of second chance points in every game.

O'Rourke is a lockdown C, very good at what he does, but he is never going to make a difference on the offensive end.

With 6 IS (when he was for sale) O'Rourke is useless for our NT -> if he makes 8 OR in a game and shoots even 50% of those, he's gonna miss them all against NT caliber players -> thats 4 wasted shots. A decent C will make 50%-75% of putbacks (unless they are up against a truly great player), that would be 4-6 points. Couple that with the fact he can't score at the rim, and its gonna be very rare that he actually makes an impact scoring at NT level, particularly at C.

In fact he is probably shooting something like just under 10% at NT level. You may argue, its because he's played at PF, well if he's played at C, he is gonna be expected to take more shots inside at the bucket. You think his scoring is gonna improve? Nope, its gonna get worse. There is a massive difference in being an NT caliber C and being a top C in your league. Coincidently, (Haverty, Bradley, Lyons, Flaharthy, [guys you claim he is better than] all have higher shooting percentages for the NT than O'Rourke - this should tell you something when you consider we dont have the players to carry O'Rourke)

I've said this about him before... he is probably a backup for our NT - A guy that comes in and locks down a player when the starter gets tired. The reason being he has no really scoring output.

If we had some other players (ideally 2 or 3) that were really consistent scorers at the G and SF positions that could carry his lack of offensive output, then he would be a good player to lockdown the oppositions best inside scorer. But this is Ireland, we don't have these players, so he is a luxury really.

If McGee has 12 IS and good ID I would start him before O'Rourke for this NT

Personally I don't know how the hell O'Rourke was sold for 5m+, although it is a much easier talent level at club team level, as opposed to NT level, and I guess people make ridiculous decisions from time to time.

This is a really simple thing to understand - O'Rourke is good at what he does, but needs to be carried scoring wise. And considering we don't have the players to carry him, what's the point in watching him brick it 90% of the time? If you cant understand that a player can be really good in some ways, and completely unsuitable at the same time, you have no business running for an NT.

And as for the NT boss saying he has missed some games, I fully understand as I haven't had much time for myself in the last couple of months - life happens and of course it comes first.

Last edited by Rockets at 8/5/2025 8:49:13 PM

I just saw that a conversation had started on the forum and I responded to it. I don’t usually post on forums, and it looks like I won’t in the future either.
I think I would prepare the same way whether the opponent is Latvia, Lithuania, Dublin Dragons, Yetis, or Buzzkills. But I admit, I don’t focus on the NT team. I read what was written, and out of all that was said, I could only respond to two things that I’ve also noticed myself.
The first is O’Rourke. He may not be the best Irish center, but he’s definitely the best defender. Since our other elite centers earn about the same amount, and because they have better Inside Scoring, it’s obvious their other three defensive skills are much weaker. That seems clear.
Two things follow from this: If the opponent wants to dominate inside, O’Rourke should start at C to neutralize that. If we want to dominate inside, he shouldn’t start at all, because his inside scoring is weak, which makes him a liability even at PF. So the fact that ever since I’ve known him he’s played only as starting PF is a questionable decision. That’s what stood out to me from last season.
I don’t think I said anything offensive or untrue, so the vehement reply was unnecessary. I wasn’t the only one who bid on O’Rourke, so I reject the comments questioning my judgment. You could say he won me the cup, so I’m perfectly happy with every cent I spent on him.
The other thing I commented on was simply that I checked the games from this year and saw that half the season was played with auto lineups. So the coach didn’t spend even a minute managing the NT team during half the season. It wasn’t that he missed a couple games, or forgot to set the lineup, or made a mistake — he just hasn’t touched the team since the start of the season, and this has nothing to do with the match results.
I have no idea what happened in previous years, and I don’t care enough to investigate. But this much was obvious at a glance.
These were the two things I pointed out, in my opinion, respectfully. Without any personal attacks, and without the rough Dublin-style tone from either side.
This was the first time I voted in the approval rating. And since I spent more time on that single click than the coach has managing the team this season, my rhetorical question is: what exactly are the 38% of people satisfied with this year?
And I’m stepping out of the discussion now.

Ok, let’s start from the most serious accusations about Holmes, who in your opinion is in the NT only because he is my club player, which is completely far from reality, because Holmes was an NT player even before I was the national team coach, and I got Holmes only 70 days ago. Based on his full skillset, Holmes is still like our 5-6 player in PG-SG position. But according to all your logic he is totally useless and cannot even be close to playing. But if we open eyes and stop pointing fingers into empty clouds, we would see that last season this player played only one game, but it looks like I play him every week :) Of course, we keep silent about your player Brian, who is also in NT roster, because that is convenient.
I don't really care about Holmes, so this is far from the most serious accusation.
As far as I know, based on his skills (17-13-18-20-20-9-11-10-6-6), compared to Kernaghan (19-10-18-19-20-11-14-12-8-5), he’s only better in JR — and in everything else he’s either the same or worse. A JR of 13 isn’t going to keep him on the court, so overall Kernaghan is the better player.
That said, I wouldn’t put either of them on the national team. And I definitely don’t think either of them is among the top 5–6 guards. (Holmes is out of form as well.)

Let’s move on… it’s always easy to make conclusions when you look at things only on surface. Same as you talk about my team and your team achievements, but to give you some context, a few seasons ago I stepped down by my own choice because I started to coach Jermaine, Donal and Casper, and not in a single season in super league I had intention to fight for league title or cup. But nothing strange when your whole text is based on achievements and how we are close to Latvia just because of one player, and that only shows that you actually don’t understand how big gap Ireland has from top 50 teams.
I haven’t achieved much myself either, you’re misunderstanding me again. But let me say it one more time: I didn’t mean it as an insult. It’s just a fact that you don’t have many achievements.
Precisely because we’re in the bottom third of all countries, I thought maybe we need a match tactician, someone who’s actually pulled off an upset or has some kind of tangible result to their name.
I don’t believe you need any kind of special knowledge to see that Latvia is clearly a much better team. But since we “only” lost by 13 points, with proper preparation and a well-set roster, maybe a miracle could’ve happened. Because yes — if everything lines up and the prep is right — even if it's once in a thousand games, upsets can happen.
But if you don’t even set a lineup, that really doesn’t help. And neither does just complaining like Rigol Rockets do, saying we don’t have good enough players. That’s exactly why enthusiasm and tactics matter so much, that’s what gives us a real chance to steal a result.



Last edited by benwo at 8/6/2025 11:47:44 AM

I should also mention about rotation. :) You say in last few seasons there was no rotation at all, I don’t even get how you can write such statement when it’s enough to open last season’s team stats and see that 26 players were used and tested, such statements just make me laugh. The season before that 22 players were used. The whole idea, which I communicated, is to give young players and those close to NT level a chance, give their coaches motivation so they want to train them and aim for NT spot. But often, like I see, we hit the same wall because of your statements, where result means everything, even when you just don’t understand how far we are from top 50 teams. Your talks about beating Latvia only proves you don’t understand where we are as a country.
This part just shows how out of touch you are. Are you seriously measuring rotation variety based on which random guys played in the 11th or 12th spot in garbage time? That’s unbelievable.
And sure, you organized a charity game at the end of the season (I genuinely appreciate that, it was a nice community effort). But that has nothing to do with actual rotation variety.
I looked back at last season, and there was no rotation at all.
Tone played PG in every game. Farquharson started SG in every game. O’Rourke started at PF in every single game. O’Dea played SF in all but one game, where he was a backup SG. It was always the same players, on the same positions, with only the tiniest end-of-the-bench changes.
The tactic was exactly the same for the first 4 games — and 3 out of the 4 opponents predicted it correctly; the fourth didn’t even try. The same setup was used again in the last 3 games too.
So we can safely say that anyone who faced the Irish team could be certain about our setup: Tone at PG (with Cummins in consistently bad form), Farquharson at SG, O’Rourke at PF, most likely O’Dea at SF, and Haverty at C. The lineup and tactics barely change.
No sign of a fast-paced “Villanova-style” 4-small-1-big offense. No low-post-focused attacking setups. Nothing.
Rigol Rockets complain that our guards aren’t good enough and that this is all we’re capable of. I don’t buy that. I think there’s more potential in this team than what we’re showing.
Sure, our guards aren’t monsters with insane skills, but with proper rotation and variation, we could get more out of them. In my opinion, our PF position is weak. The only guy who’d be a good fit there — Fahy — isn’t even on the roster. Neither is Kelleher, his teammate, who’s also clearly better than Holmes.
For example, Tone could even be pushed up to PF in certain matchups because of his strong IS, especially when we’re playing inside-focused offense. But here? There are no matchups. No game-specific tactics. Just one "tried and tested" saved starting five — occasionally with one bench guy swapped out.
With a weak roster like ours, we should be exploiting the opponent’s mistakes and weaknesses. But instead, there’s zero adaptation to any opponent. You just send out what you decided at the start of the season is the "best rotation" — barely even tweaking it in friendlies