Irish must rise to daunting Swiss task

THEY may be more hopeful than confident of reversing the result of their last meeting but the Irish men’s senior basketball team will play with passion when they face Switzerland in Sunday’s European championship game in Geneva.

“Switzerland is a huge undertaking by any standard,” Ireland coach, Greg Gurr, insisted. “And our last visit there does not hold any happy memories at all. It was not a very good performance and Switzerland took us apart. It is quite daunting, first of all to have drawn them in our group again and then to have drawn them away for our very first game in the new campaign.”

Preparations for the campaign began some weeks ago with intensive training camps in Dublin, Tralee and Oranmore and were completed last weekend at the National Basketball Arena where they lost to Norway and then performed superbly against Austria and Iceland.