BELFAST STAR captain, Conor Quinn is calling on his men to “leave everything on the court” as they head into Saturday night’s National Cup clash away to Eanna.

The two sides have been involved in some dramatic duels in recent years and last season Star knocked Eanna out of the Cup on their own floor. Now they seek a repeat of that performance off the back of an away victory and defeat in the All-Ireland Superleague at the weekend – overcoming Killorglin and then suffering a 96-73 loss at Tralee.

Star are now focused on Eanna and captain Quinn believes they are starting to gel as a team but will need a grade A performance to keep alive their dream of a first-ever Cup success.

“We always talk about how the Cup is a different animal. There’s always a different vibe and we have to leave everything on the court on Saturday night,” said Quinn.

“We have a lot of players on the team now who have experienced the Cup games, the intensity and we all know how much it means to the club because we have never won it.

“We have to take each game as it comes but of course when you think about a chance to do something that would be a piece of history for the club it would be amazing.

“We know how good Eanna are and we have some really tough battles with them. Winning last year down there gives us that belief but we really will have to be at our best.

“There were lessons to learn from the weekend. We had that good win over Killorglin, we showed our character to get over the line and then against Tralee we didn’t put in the performance we wanted. Playing two games in two days was always going to be tough but we can still learn from lapses in concentration.”

Having won less than 24 hours earlier against Killorglin, 82-73, Star started in fine form against Tralee with the sides level at 25-all after the first quarter. But then the Warriors took a firm grip of the game.

Brandon Mahan and Daniel Jakubaitis were the outstanding players on the court and they punished Star, finishing on 23 and 25 points respectively. Inside the last minute of the half Jakubaitis hit a hat-trick of three-pointers to help Tralee lead 55-37 at the break as Star’s offence dried up.

The visitors did manage to win the third quarter, 22-21, but were guilty of too many turnovers and missed opportunities. Richardson (14pts) and American Maurice Jones (19pts) tried to drag Star back into contention but Tralee had too much firepower and remained in total control to the final buzzer.

Just 24 hours earlier, Star had won a tough battle away to Killorglin with captain Quinn finishing with impressive stats of 15 points, nine rebounds and three steals, Englishman Max Cooper top scored on 22 points and six rebounds, while Jones had 16 points and five rebounds.

After an opening half in which both sides missed too many chances, Star held a slender 34-33 lead. It was a tense duel and with 90 seconds remaining in the third quarter a Jones lay-up tied the game at 49-all. The sides were then level again on 52 with 40 seconds remaining and two unanswered baskets from Cooper gave Star the advantage going into the final quarter.

Cooper, Richardson and American TC Fields made sure Star kept their noses in front and with four minutes remaining they had opened up a decisive 14-point gap, which helped them hold off a late Killorglin surge.