'I’m checking to see if it’s going to rain which is crazy for an indoor sport'- Portlaoise Panthers' Jack Scully

Portlaoise Panthers had a superb weekend of results as the men's and women's teams both recorded victories in what was a double-header in St Mary's Hall in Portlaoise. The women's game saw Portlaoise Panthers defeat Fr Matthews 80-74 but the men's game had a lot more drama.

In 2023, the Parish handed the hall over to the County Council on a long-term lease and a new hall committee was set up. The Council then handed the hall over to the hall committee on a short-term lease.

Head Coach Jack Scully spoke to the Leinster Express/ Laois Live to talk about the events which led to the game having to be been played behind closed doors.

"Saturday night we had a double-header of games in the hall. The women’s Super League team were playing Fr Matthews at 6 and the men’s National League team were playing Dublin Lions at 8. The crowds attending games this season have grown considerably. 

"For as long as I have been going to St Mary’s Hall, leaks in the roof and build-up of condensation in the hall when there’s a large crowd have been an ongoing issue for years and years. It’s something that’s been flagged with previous hall management and a long-term solution was never found for it really. When I say big crowds, we’re not over packing the place. Everyone has a seat and a clear standing room, we’re not on top of each other. The roof is a metal roof with no insulation either side of it and it’s a cold surface. When we have so many people in the hall, hot air rises and that’s meeting the cold roof which causes the condensation.

Scully goes on to say that the whole hall had to be cleared out in order for the condensation to stop forming on the court in St Mary's Hall.

"Saturday night there were around 400 people present. The women’s game went off without any issues but in the middle of the second-quarter in the men’s game, the build-up of condensation on the roof had travelled down the walls and onto the floor. The floor became slippery and the referee’s deemed it unsafe to continue. As per the rules and regulations of the competition, we had 15 minutes to rectify the issue. Based on past experience and what we know works, the only thing we could do to ensure that the game went ahead was to clear the hall and let the game continue behind closed doors. We did that and the hall dried out and the game finished. If we didn’t manage to do that within 15 minutes, a walkover would have been handed against us," he said.

Unfortunately, this isn't the first time that Portlaoise Panthers have seen their games called off as Scully recalls the opening weekend of the season where two games were abandoned.

"In the first game of the season, a double-header again, there was a massive crowd in the hall. The women’s game was called off after one minute and then the men’s game was called in the middle of the second-quarter against Killarney. We managed to get a replay after we appealed the decision with Basketball Ireland giving us a replay which we won.

"We know we’re on our last warning with this in terms of the facility and we have massive worries that Basketball Ireland might tell us that St Mary’s Hall isn’t a suitable venue for National League and Super League games. If that happens, we really have no where else to go. We need some action taken around support to develop St Mary’s Hall into a facility that we can trust and I suppose that we know that we’re not going down on a Saturday night and we’re not worried if the game is going to go ahead on a weekly basis. I’m checking weather updates to see if it’s going to rain, which is crazy for an indoor sport, it’s mad stuff," he said.

Scully says that the situation has created stress and pressure that he doesn't need with the job of managing a National League team stressful enough.

"It adds stress to an already stressful situation. The men’s team are going extremely well at the moment and the women had a huge win the other night, which really helps their hopes of not getting relegated out of the Super League. I was in Clare on Saturday at a suit fitting for my cousin’s wedding and I was texting people to see what the hall was like? Is it raining in Portlaoise? Is the leak gone? Is there condensation in the hall? It just adds extra pressure to everyone involved," Scully said.

The Portlaoise Panthers Head Coach knows how important St Mary's Hall has been in establishing Portlaoise Panthers and that now is the time for work to be done.

Portlaoise Panthers air grievances over use of St Mary's Hall

"There’s huge amounts of work gone on in Portlaoise in terms of basketball in the last 15 years. We’ve grown the club into one of the biggest and most successful clubs in the country, all based out of one hall. All our apples are in one basket, we have no second option here in Portlaoise. If St Mary’s Hall goes down, we have nowhere to go. There’s nowhere else in Portlaoise that’s suitable for Super League or National League basketball. It’s very stressful and very worrying. It’s an issue that’s gone on for years and years but there’s no one willing to throw the money at it to get it done. Now that the County Council are technically landlords of the building, I personally felt that this would be the time that we’d get the support we need to renovate the facility and turn it into something that we can trust week in week out," Scully said.

Scully knows that the resolution to the problem will inevitably cost a lot of money, it's just a matter of figuring out where the money will come from.

"The club are just renting the hall off the hall committee and that committee are managing the hall on behalf of the County Council. From what I heard, the hall committee has reached out to the local councillors this week in order to meet them and see if a definitive and actual plan can be put in place. I understand that it costs a lot of money but there are loads of things needed to be done in St Mary’s Hall. The basics that need to be done to ensure games go ahead is that the leak and condensation issues in the roof have to be rectified. They’re the only things that will guarantee that the hall is adequate for Super League and National League games. These are all conversations that have been had before and I understand money is tight. Everyone’s looking for money off the County Council, everyone’s looking for something. I strongly feel that we deserve to be backed and St Mary’s Hall needs to be a priority. We have 600 members and 40-odd teams playing out of the hall. The facility itself is being massively overused I would think and that’s part of the problem too," he said.

Over the years, there have been many different plans drawn up to try get a new site for the basketball club to have their own facility but funding being a major issue on almost every occasion.

Ball starts rolling on new indoor sports hall for Portlaoise

"Our original plan was to develop our own facility on a greenfield site but again we asked the County Council for sites and they’ve all been assigned to other areas and other projects that are deemed more important at the time. That’s okay but the bare minimum should be that they support us financially to upgrade St Mary’s Hall into something that we can use," Scully said.

As Portlaoise Panthers are only tenants in St Mary's Hall, it's down to Laois County Council to make the necessary changes to the basketball hall.

"It’s not our hall, it’s a County Council hall and they’re the landlords. As far as we’re concerned, it’s their responsibility to make sure that the facility is up to a standard that it can be used for what it’s meant to be used for. That hall has been a basketball hall for 50 years and yes, it might have other groups in the community using it but primarily, 90% of the bookings there week in week out are basketball related. That could be schools using it or the club using it, Irish teams come there to train because it’s so central. St Mary’s Hall is one of the best-known and longest-standing basketball facilities in the country. There has been no significant development put into it over the last 20/25 years," he said.

Scully talks through what's needed in order for the hall to regain its ability to host matches in the future without any hassle.

"There are certain measures we can take like putting humidifiers in the hall. We were meant to have one more double-header lined up in two weeks time. We’re looking to change that due to the fact that we can’t stand-by that the hall will hold up to having that many people in the hall for that length of time. We’re looking to play one game on Saturday and one game on Sunday. That means schedules will have to be changed such as the referees agreeing to change their schedule and getting away teams to play at 3 o’clock on a Sunday as opposed to playing on a Saturday night. There’s all these little things that we can do to help it but we shouldn’t have to be doing those things and we shouldn’t have to be worrying about it. The facility should just be developed so that this stuff doesn’t come into account such as the weather," he said.

Portlaoise College and St Mary's CBS/ Scoil Chriost Ri both have basketball halls and although they're suitable for training, they can't serve the same purpose that St Mary's Hall does so the club are left with no other option but to continue using the hall.

"In fairness to both St Mary’s CBS and Portlaoise College, they do give us a limited amount of hours each week so that teams can train. Portlaoise College is not big enough to be passed as a National League facility. It’s been checked by Basketball Ireland and it’s deemed not acceptable, the 3-point line isn’t a regulation 3-point line so we can’t have National League games there. We have teams training up there every week and we’re very grateful for that. Since the new hall was built at the CBS, it’s not under the management of the school, it’s under a management company. They don’t rent it out too freely to outside organisations. I think we have four hours a week in that hall and that’s the limit on it. There’s no real option other than St Mary’s Hall in Portlaoise for hosting National and Super League games," Scully ended.

The men's team travel to Malahide this weekend as they look to cement top spot in Division 1 while the women's team are set to welcome the Waterford Wildcats to Portlaoise on Saturday from 7pm.