TRALEE Imperials basketball coach, Liam Culloty, made took another step up the ladder in his coaching career, when over the weekend he was appointed head coach for the Ireland U18 Women’s team.

The Mercy Mounthawk teacher, had been serving as assistant coach of the side since November 2014 and now has made the natural progression to coach.

“I’m delighted to get the job, it’s going to be a great challenge,” said Liam.

He is a son of Michael Culloty, who enjoyed success as a basketball coach with Moyderwell school and others in the past.

This year, Liam can look forward to leading an Ireland side to a European Championships which will be held in Bosnia.

Over the next couple of months the Listellick native will be busy picking his team that will go to Bosnia, which he informs us unfortunately has no Tralee or Kerry players involved.

There will be a quite a lot of travelling in the role with training taking place all over the country. One of Liam’s highlights last year was bringing the team to Tralee.

“We were really well looked after by the locality. We were given a great reception and people really looked after us. So, we’ll be looking at doing something like that again, hopefully in June or July before the European Championships,” he said.

Liam is currently coaching the Tralee Imperials U18 girls team and St Brendan’s U16 boys team.