Thornton can't mask pain of missing star-studded French

Specialist ruled out captain Edel Thornton's plan to wear a protective mask against France at the National Arena on Sunday

PROTECTIVE MASK: Ireland captain Edel Thornton was prepared to go full Kobe and wear a mask to protect her broken nose in order to play in tomorrow’s opening Eurobasket 2025 group game against France in the National Arena. Pic: ©INPHO/James Crombie

IRELAND captain Edel Thornton was prepared to go full Kobe and wear a mask to protect her broken nose in order to play in tomorrow’s opening Eurobasket 2025 group game against France in the National Arena (5pm, live TG4).

The Brunell star had already purchased one but when her nose was re-set mid-week - it was broken in a Super League game against Glanmire two weeks ago - the specialist said ‘no way’ and there were tears.

“I don’t know was it the mix of the pain of it going back in and the emotion of it all but you can’t prepare yourself for missing out,” she admits ruefully.

“It's all I was thinking of the whole summer while I was training on my own – France in Dublin! You have to have something to work for and this is just so big.” 

Thorton’s passion to be involved is not just testament to her leadership but also to the quality of the opposition.

France are currently ranked seventh in the world.

They won silver at the London 2012 Olympics and bronze in Tokyo. They have medalled at every European Championship since 2009 and it took the might of China to knock them out, at quarter-final stage, in the 2022 World Cup.

Les Bleues are not expected to feature WNBA stars like Marine Johannes, Iliana Rupert and Kadi Sisokko but still represent one of the highest ranked teams to ever play Ireland, in any sport, let alone grace the hard court in Tallaght.

Despite their progress since returning to this level of European ball, Ireland’s current FIBA ranking is 80. This isn’t so much a case of David v Goliath as David v Godzilla.

James Weldon’s side are under no illusion but aim to go down fighting.

“It's a huge opportunity for us to play them here, and then go to play them in Paris. That’s really cool and we’ve talked about it,” Thornton says.

“They expect to come in here and win, of course they do, but we own the underdog mentality. We’ve got maturity in our squad now and also that ‘never say die’ attitude and I really hope we have a good crowd to keep us going.” 

Point guard Marine Fauthoux will lead the French and in debutant Lou Lopez-Senechal they’ve got a player who will be familiar, not just because she starred for U.Conn last season and was the WNBA’s fifth draft pick, selected by Dallas.

She played for Killester’s U20s while based here with an American feeder outfit (NABA) in 2017-2018 and Thornton also played against her regularly when the Cork woman was starring for Quinnipiac in the NCAA.

Ireland are taking some inspiration from Poland shocking Belgium in another group midweek.

Clare Melia takes over as captain and Bridget Herlihy, who plays with Ensino in Spain, will also need to provide leadership. With Thornton and Dayna Finn absent (she’s now playing AFLW) Jessica Scannell’s availability, during her off-season in Australia, is particularly timely.

IRELAND SQUAD: J Scannell (Geelong, Australia), M Clarke, C Melia (Killester), S Tiernan, Á O’Connor, R Huijsdens (Liffey Celtics), S Hickey, K Hickey (Waterford Wildcats), L Homan (Brunell), H Thornton (DCU Mercy), B Herlihy (Ensino Lugo CB, Spain), K McCleane (Union Galway Mystics).