Ireland fulfil the fixture, Israel revel in victory

The Irish team did make some gesture of protest ahead of their Eurobasket qualifier with Israel by remaining by their bench for the anthems and refusing to shake hands.

8 February 2024; The Ireland team before the FIBA Women's EuroBasket Championship Qualifier match between Israel and Ireland at the Rimi Olympic Centre in Riga, Latvia. Photo by Oksana Dzadan/Sportsfile

So they went through with it. Ireland's EuroBasket qualifier with Israel in Latvia went ahead.

And in the end it played out as you would have expected and probably feared. While the Irish team did make some gesture of protest by remaining by their bench for both national anthems and refusing to shake hands with their opponents, what happened just after the final buzzer sounded spoke even louder about the nature of this fixture.