Star Of The Sea

After the loss during the summer of longtime coach Danny Fulton and veteran player Javan Dupree, Star will have former Queen's coach Darren O'Neill at the helm and have retained the services of last season's International player of the year John Leahy who will have American Ryan Howse and Canadian Bosman signing Drew Moir as new team-mates.

Notre Dame

Player coach Anthony Jenkins has recovered from a severe ankle injury to return to the squad in which he will have 6 feet 9 inch new American signing Pino Pipes as a team-mate along with Randall Mounts who is close to becoming a naturalised Irish player. Darren McGuinness returns after his abrupt and premature decision to leave the club last year but Eamon Gallagher will not be part of the squad.

Blue Demons

The Cork club's return after more than five years out of the game at national level has been inspired to a great degree by the success and quality of their underage players of recent years. They will form the basis of their squad in addition to new signings Dave Lehane and Steve Hannigan from North Monastery.

American Pat Price will coach while their foreign player signings are Jamaican Duval Simmonds and American Dion Wingfield.

Dublin Bay Vikings (formerly MSB)

The well-travelled American coach Ken Black joins DBV for the season with veterans Jerome Westbrooks and Ed Randolph providing plenty of experience and height in a squad which includes American Jay Fazandes who returns for a second season. A second foreign signing has yet to be completed.

Killarney

Former international player of the year Ricardo Leonard returns from Chester Jets to Kerry after helping Tralee to the league title three seasons ago. Another American Blake Gage will act as player-coach while they have also signed Texan Jamal Chretien. Killarney's Irish squad of players has been seriously strengthened by the close season acquisition of Irish international John Teehan from Tralee and Brian Clernon from Castleisland.

Killester

Coached again by Pete Ferrari, Killester have gone to great lengths to secure a high quality American and they may have succeeded judging by the CV of 6 feet 3 inch Damon Shoultz from Maryland. Shoultz not only led the scoring averages for Syracuse in his college games he also proved to be a superb defender leading in rebounds and steals. Their second American is 6 feet 7 inch Joe Warnke who misses the game in Limerick on Sunday with a broken nose.

UCD Marian

American Kevin Ellery returns to not only play for Marian but to co-coach with Cormac Connor as well. He will be joined by American Rasuel McKune and Bosman signing Igor Bongiovanni who played with Ballina last season.

Sligo

Joe Coughlan is back for another season as coach but the line-up of Americans is uncertain. Gordon Winchester is expected to be resigned with possibly David Weaver or Mitch Henderson arriving from Princeton. Robert Bree is out through injury for the season.

Tolka Rovers

Tolka have high hopes that they have signed two quality Americans in 6 feet 4 inch Shep Chaffer and 6 feet 5 inch Shawn Scott. Their Irish squad of players has been strengthened by the acquisition of Neal McCotter from Star, Alan Kennedy from Killester and the free-scoring John Quigley from Ballina.

Neptune

Mark Scannell coaches for the second season running and has to reckon without Stephen McCarthy, Ger Heaphy, Alan Kelly and Malcolm Thompson. Gordon Fitzgerald will not be in action until November when he returns from Army duty in the Lebanon. Their Americans are the experienced Terry Smith and 6 feet 5 inch Shawn Wilson from Ohio.

St Vincent's

Andy Meyers, who returns for a second season and former Ballina American Chris Doyal are the two foreign signings for Joey Boylan's squad. New young and exciting players to watch out for are John Davoren, who returns from high school in the US, and three stars of the underage St Vincent's club teams, Kevin Rooney, Dave Scott and David Wren.

Waterford

High scoring Roscoe Patterson, who joins from Tralee and the well-travelled American Eric Blair are the two foreign signings in a squad which will be coached again by Michael Evans.

Dungannon

Frankie O'Loane coaches a little changed squad which sees the return of Vic Pereira and Al Boller who will be joined by new American Danny Correll.

Limerick

Coach Tom Hehir has two new Americans to the Irish scene - Matt Rooney from New York and Charles Williams from St Louis. A notable loss is the high scoring Jason Hurley. However, three fine underage players, John Galvin, Scott Ross and Jonathon Darcy have graduated to the senior squad.