Jordan Blount hoping to bring the X-factor after swapping Neptune for Killorglin 

It’s the sort of distance and separation that speaks for the parting of ways with a club that was in his bones. Blount used to walk from his house in Mayfield to Neptune up to three times a day as a kid. And it was to Neptune that he gravitated when he brought a decade of nomadic basketball to a close and returned to Ireland in 2022.

There was push and pull in the move to Killorglin.

His time with Neptune, he says, had simply run its course. His return had looked to be a win-win for both parties. Blount was bringing his talents, his leadership and his experiences from England, Spain, the US college scene and Iceland to one of the most storied clubs in the Irish game. In the end it just didn’t work.

“There was a lot of animosity there towards the end on both sides.” A lot of it was “basketball stuff” but some of it, he says, was off-the-court issues that leaked into the team dynamic. 

Ask him to pinpoint where this friction first sparked and he can’t put a finger on it. A clash of personalities is as close as he comes. 

Whatever the root cause, the answer was for player and club to continue on divergent paths.

All of this is shared without hint of rancour or bitterness.

“No, for me I have a very strong support system that supports me in the right way and holds me accountable and I confide and trust in them. I have been part of this game for a long time now and at various different levels and I know the intricacies of what it takes to be successful and I just didn’t think that I would be successful there.

“It’s not something that I hold animosity towards them anymore. When you are in a situation it is hard to reflect because you are so involved and entrenched, but once you step away it is easier to look back and reflect and change for where you are heading to next. I think I have had the opportunity to do that and I am grateful for it.” 

If there is a keystone in that support structure then it is his wife Salma. 

Egyptian-born and Chicago-raised, they met during his time in the States. The move to Cork in 2022 could have been a culture shock. 

Salma took it in her stride. Just as she seems to have done with the latest shift, this time westwards to a small town in Kerry.

Blount lost his father Gary two years before his return to Ireland in 2022. 

His younger brother Garreth had already received a diagnosis for esophageal cancer and, within months, that had been confirmed as terminal. Garreth passed away in January of last year. Here again, Salma was a rock to lean on.

“What happened in my first season [back] is I was in the hospital almost 24/7. If I wasn’t in the hospital I was in the gym so I didn’t see my wife a whole lot and we had just been married. And she never batted an eyelid. 

"She was there for me, she supported me, she knew what I was dealing with. Without that I wouldn’t have been able to persevere through it.

“And it wasn’t me going through it, my little brother was. So it was, ‘how can I be here for him in the way that he needs me most?’ And I feel like I did that to the best of my ability. That gave me comfort. We always had very grown-up conversations about the situation and he was very realistic about it all. He made it easier for me as well.” 

Blount speaks about making his brother, and his six-month old daughter Layla and any other children they might have one day, proud. He sees basketball as what he does rather than who he is, but it is through this sport that he is looking to leave his mark. 

In Killorglin, he feels ideally situated to do just that.

He has committed to the Super League club on a multi-year contract and the young family have moved down from Cork lock, stock and both barrels. 

He is playing and coaching, taking the U18s, going into the local schools and generally looking to tie as many strands together so that the club can knit itself further into the fabric of the community.

He talks of his “big personality”, and how he can use it. 

If the likes of Ballina and Tralee are much larger urban areas, then they still stand as examples of how relatively small towns can give birth to basketball teams that can compete and beat the best this country has to offer and carry an influence beyond all proportion to their numbers.

Blount jumps at that suggestion.

“Killorglin is like a sleeping giant. Everyone in the town knows we’re there. They want us to do well and it is up to us to do our job and go out there and keep winning and keep them coming. It’s the type of town that if you are successful they will get behind you.

“There is a local politician in the town, Podge Foley, and he is super supportive of us. Him and other members of the community are just waiting for us to be successful and hopefully I can be that X-factor that the club hasn’t had in the past and bring it all together, mesh it.” 

If there is potential strength in the closeness of such a small community then there is the scope for weaknesses as well. 

The loss of DCU Mercy to the women’s Super League over the summer shows again how fine the line is between success and oblivion in the top rungs of Irish basketball.

The ambition is for this team to deliver the sort of success that persuades sponsors to get on board and then stay on board. And to make the local kids think twice when it comes time to choose a college or a job. That maybe they will want to apply for something in Tralee and play ball for the local club, rather than look to a more distant horizon.

That’s the long game. Everything about it so far tells Blount that this is the place for him.