Star of the Sea demonstrated the kind of strength in depth that might well propel them to a second successive league title with a thorough dismissal of Dublin Bay Vikings at the Maysfield Centre in Belfast yesterday.
The scoreline of 83-61 to the Belfast club, against one of the early pace-setters in the campaign, reflected how one-sided the game was and this was all the more impressive considering that Star were missing their American Ryan Howse.
For Vikings, the defeat was further evidence of their remarkable slide since winning four of their first five matches. Since then, they have lost seven league games in a row and from a position of flirting with ideas of major trophy success, they are now only three places off the bottom.
As Killester suffered their second defeat in a fortnight and their third in the campaign on Saturday night against Blue Demons in Cork, Star are now the outright leaders of the league.
Although Demons have possibly suffered too many losses already (five) to challenge for the title, they have the look of a team which could seriously trouble the title ambitions of teams ahead of them judging by their 23-point victory over Killester, who had been sharing the lead with Star before the weekend.
Dion Wingfield, the highest scoring player this season, pushed his average per game over the 30 mark with a superb 43 points in Demons' 95-72 success.
Another Cork side in form are Neptune who were superb in the first half against Notre Dame in Clontarf on Saturday night, taking a 20-point half-way lead on their way to a 92-77 success.
Waterford stay in the top four, just two points off the lead, after working very hard for a 79-73 win over Limerick who led 39-34 at half-time and were still five points ahead midway through the final quarter. Waterford's American's Eric Blair and Roscoe Patterson really stepped up when they were needed and scored 53 points between them.
The closest match in the Superleague was Killarney's 92-91 win over Dungannon in Kerry on Saturday evening. The home side led 52-47 at half-time and went 10 points ahead in the third quarter, but Dungannon closed the gap to a point with 10 minutes remaining.
There was still only a point in it with 18 seconds left on the clock but Dungannon's Danny Coryell was then penalised for a carrying violation which handed possession over to Killarney who just held on.
The top scorer in the game on 29 points was Dungannon's Trevor Smullen, who has consistently outscored both Americans at the Tyrone club all season.
The other two Superleague games resulted in easy wins as St Vincent's won the Dublin derby in UCD against Marian 96-74, while Sligo beat Tolka 99-80 in the duel between the bottom two clubs in the table.
In the women's Superleague, Meteors moved into outright second place with a 79-62 win on Saturday night in Sandyford where Irish captain Karen Hennessy scored 25 points.
There was a surprise in Limerick where Tolka Rovers lost heavily 73-54.
