Weldon's much improved Irish women will face biggest challenge yet against French maestros

James Weldon was reappointed Ireland women’s head coach for FIBA Women’s EuroBasket 2025 Qualifiers.

Back in February 2019, shortly after he had been appointed coach of the Irish senior women’s basketball team, James Weldon held a meeting of prospective players at the national sports campus in Abbotstown and told them of a vision that he had that at the time seemed more like an outlandish dream.

Ireland were coming off a disappointing performance at the previous summer’s European Small Countries championship, finishing sixth out of eight teams, even though they had hosted the event (in Cork) and had been runners-up in the previous tournament in 2016. Out of the 44 nations affiliated to FIBA Europe, the Irish women’s team were ranked 42nd.

It was still a better position than Ireland had been during the first half of the decade when there had been no senior national programme at all on account of Basketball Ireland’s dire finances, but a different form of inertia appeared to have set in. Ireland were a small countries team only, participating in that tournament every second summer, the sport here seeming to be satisfied as much as condemned to play the Andorras of Europe rather than the likes of the Netherlands who they had been playing and even beating back in 2009.

Weldon though had grander ambitions than that.

Having the meeting in Abbotstown, the home of Irish high performance sport though Sport Ireland didn’t recognise basketball here as a high performance sport, was a statement of intent in itself. But even bolder was the timeline and targets he outlined to the 25-plus players in the room.

2019 would not be a gap year; instead he had determined that with the training and games programme he and his backroom had in mind that it would be a catch-up year to put Ireland in a position to medal and excel at the 2020 Small Countries in Cyprus. Their performances there then would compel Basketball Ireland to return the senior national team to full European competition, back among the big girls again.

This time, in fact, the big girls would be even bigger than before. Back in 2009, when Ireland had been playing and beating the Dutch, they were still ring-fenced from playing the elite teams on the continent; they were operating in the B division (though they had come within a whisker of winning promotion to A). But in the intervening years FIBA Europe had changed their qualification processes to be more in line with UEFA. Just as Dublin could host Kylian Mbappe in a European championships qualifier, it could conceivably also host his compatriots – serial Eurobasket medallists - in a women’s Eurobasket qualifier – if the people in that room could by their actions convince their national governing body to dream bigger than the Small Countries.

Some day, by his reckoning 2023, Weldon told them, some of the players in that room would stand to face the tricolour in a packed National Basketball Arena moments before playing one of the top guns in Europe.

It is not just to Weldon’s credit but equally his various players through the years and Basketball Ireland itself that his vision is being realised: only the timelines have altered.

The subsequent Small Countries wasn’t held until 2021 because of Covid, and though Ireland lost the final to Luxembourg, their level of performance that week – along with the manner in which the Irish men’s team won the equivalent tournament the following month – sold Basketball Ireland it was time to immediately restore the senior teams to full international competition proper.

And so 12 months ago Weldon’s team came within a point of beating the Dutch – a nation that had improved significantly since they’d last played Ireland in 2009 – and were also competitive though ultimately winless against the Czech Republic, a team who reached the quarter-finals of this past summer’s Eurobasket.

This weekend’s opening 2025 Eurobasket qualifier though represents probably the biggest step up of the lot.

On Sunday evening the Arena in Tallaght will, in the form of the French national women’s team, host probably the best basketball team – and certainly the highest-ranked international basketball team, men’s or women’s – to ever play in Ireland.

In one of the most incredible streaks in international women’s team sport, France have medalled at each of the last eight Eurobaskets: in other words, since and including 2009 they have finished among the top three teams in Europe (one gold, five silvers and two bronze).

They are ranked seventh in the world, the same spot they finished in the Tokyo Olympics, but with next summer’s Games being in Paris, are expecting – and expected – a podium finish. The last time any Irish team played a side of such calibre – say the great USSR men’s teams of Arvydas Sabonis that defeated the US and David Robinson in Seoul, prompting the US to send for Jordan and the pros – would have been back in the ’80s on neutral ground.

Bridget Herlihy appeals for a foul.

The only uncapped player the French are bringing to Dublin, Lou Lopez Senechal, was the fifth pick of this season’s WNBA draft, having starred for the UConn Huskies, the top college programme in the States. Though she was born in Mexico and is a national star there by virtue of being the first player from the country to be drafted to the WNBA, it is a measure of her and France’s ambition that she has opted to play for her mother’s home country.

Three of their current WNBA players aren’t available to play in Dublin but that will be compensated for by the presence of seven players who are currently playing in the Euroleague (the basketball equivalent of the Champions League) and four others who play in the EuroCup (the equivalent of the Europa League).

The only Irish player operating at anything resembling that level in the club game would be Bridget Herlihy; the Boston-born player with grandparents from the Aran Islands and Kerry is playing this season in Spain’s Liga Femenina, the top domestic league in Europe. The rest of the Irish team are all either students or working full-time or part-time.

It is a team though constantly making strides, and is especially competitive at home. Over the last two years they are 4-1 at home; they’ve beaten both Austria and Estonia in friendly games, their one loss being that heart-breaking defeat to the Dutch when Ireland had led for all but the last minute of the game.

They are further boosted by the return to international competition of Jessica Scannell who has played in Australia’s NBL-One in recent years; the enthusiasm and experience she offers should be similar to the lift Orla O’Reilly gave with those qualities in the last Eurobasket campaign.

Edel Thornton is an injury concern, having sustained a suspected broken nose in Brunel’s recent derby win over Glanmire, but were she available that is a formidable Irish backcourt; along with Thornton, her likely backup Kara McCleane and Sorcha Tiernan have been the three top players in the first month of this season’s Superleague.

Ireland’s bigs have also been in a rich vein of form with the Hickey sisters leading Wildcats to a 3-1 start and a huge Cup win over Glanmire while Claire Melia is the league’s leading rebounder with 14.3 boards a game.

It is not defeatist to say Ireland will almost lose. The French have just too much length and depth and skill for almost everyone in Europe, let alone a country playing in only their second qualifying campaign at this level over the last 35 years.

It could even be a day of pain for Weldon’s squad.

But it should also be a day of pride for them and all associated with Irish basketball. This is the sort of stage and opponent just a few years ago the sport here could only have dreamt of, witnessing a standard of play this country hasn’t seen before.

Weldon also spoke in Abbotstown that afternoon of Ireland making the Eurobasket finals before the end of this decade. He’d have known that to get to there that they’d have to play the likes of France here.

To paraphrase a line from the basketball romantic comedy Forget Paris, they asked for it, now they’ve got it. Will they regret it? Non, Weldon is likely to say. Je ne regrette rien.