A journey that began during the pandemic on a rainy night in Amsterdam has finally ended. Now, for the Ireland women’s basketball team, a similarly rainy night in Dublin heralded the beginning of a new one. Emmet Ryan on the emphatic end to the long wait for a first win in EuroBasket Women.
It was the result few saw coming. It came with even more surprising dominance. Ireland beat Bosnia & Herzegovina on Saturday night in Dublin. It came just over 4 years after this journey began, and now the EuroBasket Women adventure is truly opening up for the national team.
Starting with the context
At a bar whose name long escapes me, I ran into Tommy Tracey in Amsterdam. It was 10 November 2021. Tracey, long involved helping out with UCD Marian, had booked a heap of trips away as soon as the world began to re-open. He was just fortunate that this coincided with Netherlands hosting Ireland in EuroBasket Women qualifying. Dozens more made the trip deliberately.
The following night, Ireland lost to the Netherlands. That was expected, it was the nation’s first ever game at this level. Three more defeats from as many games would come, including a heartbreaker to Netherlands a year later in Dublin.
There would be another near-miss in the next batch of qualifiers. A 0-6 run in EuroBasket Women 2025 qualifiers ended with a tight home loss to Latvia. Then, of course, came Luxembourg’s huge display on Wednesday to make Ireland’s record 11 played, 11 lost in qualifying.
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Total domination
Ireland never trailed against Bosnia & Herzegovina on Saturday night. Indeed, the scores were only level at 2-2. Aside from a rally in the back half of the second quarter, the visitors never truly threatened Ireland.
It was order, it was control, and at times it was utter bullying by the Irish side. The 94-67 winning margin was a fair reflection on the balance of play. Ireland, partly fuelled by their disappointing performance against Luxembourg, were relentless.
The visitors came with some serious talent. They may have missed out on EuroBasket Women 2025 but they arrived in Dublin with a WNBA veteran in Kamiah Smalls. Save for her explosion in the second quarter, she was kept at bay. Instead it was Hazel Finn, Edel Thornton, Claire Melia, and Lorraine Scanlon that took charge.
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An identity to build on
Scanlon only joined the national set-up in the summer, despite being 32. She may be young for a rookie campaign at this level but Scanlon is what my dear friend Sam Meyerkopf likes to call a motherfucker. She brings order and steel to the defensive side of the game and has no time for the reputations of those against her.
You can’t win consistently in this sport without some motherfuckers in your line-up. Beyond that, Finn and Enya Maguire getting to roam free off-ball, where they’re strongest, coupled with Thornton and Melia sharing creative duties is clearly where the identity of this roster lies going forward.
Getting rid of that 0 in the win column was vital to the sport here. Now, it’s about how far this side can go. There’s one more game in this window then three more in March. Realistically, given how the rankings of best third placed teams work, Ireland will need at least 2 wins from those 4 remaining outings. That certainly feels a lot more achievable now that the first win has actually been nabbed.
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