1 week Ago By Irishexaminer.com
Seán Flood stepped off the court after a recent game for the London Lions to a text message from his father who'd been watching back home. He wanted to know if his son's face was OK. "You could just see throughout the game, the lump growing on the side of my cheek," said Flood.
The Dubliner had suffered a concussion which would keep him out of action for three games. He returned to the court against Newcastle earlier this month, and played more significant minutes over the weekend as London beat both Caledonia and Cheshire. It's good news for Ireland who face Azerbaijan and Kosovo in crucial World Cup pre-qualifiers on Thursday and Sunday, respectively.
"Just an elbow fighting through a screen, fighting through a handoff early in the first quarter, caught an elbow to the side of the face, an elbow to the back of the head in the same play. I didn't even realise until after the game," the point guard, who is also Ireland captain, explained. "Then really as soon as the buzzer went and the adrenaline stopped in my body, I was a bit whacked.
The first three days were very difficult. I was sleepy, dizzy, sensitivity to light - all that stuff. "I'm lucky enough to have my girlfriend living with me.
She did a good job looking after me for the first kind of three, four days and was very strict on me following the protocol that the physios and the doctors were giving me." Flood joined the Lions in September after spending seasons with clubs in the Netherlands, Austria and Cyprus. He signed during a rollercoaster period for the reigning British champions.
A month earlier, the club had gone into administration and a fortnight beforehand, they'd been taken over by tech firm Tesonet who also have a shareholding in Lithuanian club Zalgiris-Kaunas. "Obviously, London's brand the last couple of years has been one of the bigger, more loud brands in European basketball. Probably arguably the fastest-growing team in Europe," said Flood.
"It was conversations that I had with my agent before, 'Listen, what is the financial situation?' But then as soon as you hear Tesonet and Zalgiris are involved, you know everything's going to be above board, everything's going to be fairly safe. "It's then just excitement for an opportunity to play for such a big club, play for a good coach, play with such talented players and have the opportunity to be close to home too." Flood's situation at the Lions is different to previous experiences.
At Dutch side Den Helder, he was their star player. In London he's battling for minutes at a club which has started the season 5-0. "We're very talented and the way we play, it's very kind of up-tempo," he said.
"There's a lot of rotation, a lot of in and out and stuff like that. It's a different role for me than I've been used to in the past. "Nearly every stop I've been at, I've been more of a focal point, whereas now this year it's kind of understanding that opportunity is going to be there for me and I have to be ready to take it when the opportunity is there.
"It's definitely an adjustment, but it's one that I'm happy with and kind of slowly I feel growing into it." At 28, Flood is in the prime of career, playing with a club flying high in Super League Basketball, what was known as the British Basketball League prior to this season. It's exactly where he wants to be.
"If someone could have told me at 28 I'd be playing for London in the situation I'm playing in, I'd say 'Yes, I'm pretty happy with that', especially with the vision of the club. If it was a real step back that they were trying to take this year, just surviving in the league, well then that would have been a different story. "Conversations with the coaches and agents before I joined, that it was still going to be a competitive group trying to win the league and push on for Europe, it made it very exciting.
A situation surrounded by a complete and utter professionalism, that's exactly where I'd like to be.".
