Glanmire's Mia Furlong finding her feet in green

GATEWAY TO SUCCESS: The Address UCC Glanmire’s Mia Furlong is all set for international minutes this week. 

JUST how far would you go for your sporty kids?

Paul Furlong certainly took ‘Dad & Mum’s Taxi’ service to another level Monday morning when he turned the car for Dublin airport at an ungodly hour.

When your daughter Mia has just won a top-of-the-table clash to put The Address UCC Glanmire atop the MissQuote.ie Super League table and needs to join her Irish senior teammates at stupid-o-clock next day, these are the lengths to which parents will go.

“We had to be in the airport at 5am so he drove me up from Cork at half past two in the morning. That man would do anything for me!” she relates gratefully.

“He’s actually coming out to watch the game with a friend of his. He wouldn’t be much into basketball but he’s going to experience it at such a high level.” 

It was Furlong’s mum Evelyn who first encouraged her to take up the game and even though both herself and Paul are from Enniscorthy they’re now the proud parents of three Cork daughters. Mia (21) and Abby (18) are already playing Super League together and Aoise plays with Glanmire’s U10s.

Now their eldest is on the cusp of her senior competitive debut in green, the only Glanmire player in the panel for Thursday's final 2023 European Championships qualifier, against the Czech Republic, in Praque (Live on TG4, 4pm).

There was no pressure when Furlong made her Ireland senior debut, against Estonia, in last summer’s Gotham Drywall Challenge series - “literally the most perfect first cap you could have imagined.”  

But this is her first time to make the final 12 and, with nothing to lose, (qualification is already beyond James Weldon’s side), she might get court time.

She went from battling with Trinity Meteors’ Dayna Finn on Sunday to sharing a room with her the next night.

“We haven’t spoken about that yet,” she smiled. “That’s just what you have to do. All the players get along really well. I see Edel (Thornton) a lot in Cork but the girls from Dublin, even though you wouldn’t see them much, there’s no difference once we’re in camp together.” 

Thornton may play for Brunell but gave her a great senior international welcome, as did Trinity’s Claire Melia who played with Glanmire last year.

“As captain, Edel takes everyone under her wing anyway but, my first (Ireland) training she was like ‘oh we’ll get the bus up together’ and she chatted to me the whole way so that really put me at ease.” 

Furlong is from a talented generation of ballers who simply see no obstacles on or off the court. She was part of the Ireland U18 team just pipped for a quarter-final slot at the 2019 European U18s (Division B).

Of that crew Katie Williamson, Erin Maguire and Debbie Ogayemi are now in the States while Furlong is in her third year of chemical engineering at MTU Cork where the gender balance defies expectations.

“There’s 21 in my class and it’s the first they’ve ever had with a 50:50 split which I think is brilliant. I feel like our U18 team was the first time I thought ‘we can do really well here’. We were just very unlucky, lost out on points difference in the group stages to get into the last eight which was crushing.

“It means everything to be here now and if I even get to step on the court for a minute or two tomorrow (thurs) I’d be delighted.”