Early ESB Superleague pacesetters Waterford tumbled back into the chasing pack of teams after suffering back-to-back defeats on their first double duty weekend of the campaign.

On Saturday they were unfortunate to find inconsistent St Vincent's in superb form and the Dubliners won well in the end by 97 points to 85. Then yesterday, less that 20 hours later, the reigning league champions, Star of the Sea, laid down a significant marker in their defence of the title by easily defeating them 93-72.

The loss to St Vincent's was particularly damaging to Waterford's pursuit of the league title. In a fine open game, the Glasnevin side dominated the second quarter to go 49-42 ahead at the half-time break, only for Waterford to respond with a strong performance in the third quarter, during which they took a narrow lead at 64-60.

However, St Vincent's played some of their best basketball of the season in the final quarter and they dominated the closing exchanges to win with a degree of comfort. Both of their Americans Chris Doyal (24 points) and Andy Meyers (18 points) showed improved form from recent weeks but the difference between the sides was the influence of Irish international Karl Donnelly, who had his best game of the season for the Glasnevin men shooting home 23 points.

Not even Eric Blair's superb individual tally of 36 points could prevent Waterford from suffering only their second defeat of the campaign.

Defeat number three, though, yesterday against Star of the Sea was firm evidence that Waterford need to diversify their play and not depend so entirely on their Americans. Star's heavy duty defence restricted Blair to 24 points and his partner Roscoe Patterson to 21 - modest totals by their recent standards.

In addition to their trademark strong defence, Star had too may scoring options at their disposal and it was significant that it was their Irish international, Gareth McGuire, who ended up as the highest scorer in the game on 25 points.

With Waterford's early season unbeaten run no longer the dominant element in the campaign, the team which is arguably displaying the best form in the league at present is Killester. They won a tricky Dublin derby game on Saturday night against Marian by 102-94 in Clontarf. Damon Shoultz had a superb match for Killester scoring 37, with Mike Trimmer adding a hefty 31.

Neptune's 92-86 win in Limerick, which featured a match-winning 39 points from Harold Joiner, took the Corkmen up alongside Waterford and into a share of third place in the table, while Blue Demons share fifth place with St Vincent's after defeating Killarney 83-73

In the women's ESB Superleague, Wildcats broke the 100 mark on the scoresheet for the first time this season and extended their winning streak at national competition level to 29 consecutive games after an easy 113-66 win over Tolka Rovers.

The surprise of the women's action was Limerick's first success of the campaign as they beat second-placed Meteors 71-60.