Weldon praises young squad for 'incredible maturity' in a difficult week

Fri, 09 Feb, 2024 - 06:58

Kieran Shannon

So, what will the abiding image from this game be?

Like anything involving Israel these days, it depends on your perspective, or, as some parties and indeed players from that country would claim, whether you’re anti-Semitic or not.

In the end the Irish senior women’s team did make a form of protest, which, could also be argued, was more powerful than if they had boycotted the game; you can’t televise an empty scoresheet but you can film a national team refusing to face its opponents or shake their hands by instead opting to remain standing by their own bench for the national anthems rather than the customary centre court position. While maybe not quite Tommie Smith and John Carlos, it is a gesture that has gone viral and will be seen across the world.

But Israel is and has a different audience and for them what happened before the game would have only confirmed that guard Dor Sa’ar’s pre-match claim that the Irish team are anti-semitic was not inflammatory as Basketball Ireland have contended but merely the truth.

To their constituency, what will matter most is the images that would have been taken shortly after the game, not shortly before it.

After a Bridget Herlihy put-back on the buzzer saw to it that Ireland got within 30 points of a nation that number of spots ahead of them in the world rankings, the entire Israeli team, triumphantly took to the court with their national flag in hand; then posed for photographs that you wouldn’t usually see after dispatching of a lower-ranked opponent but ones that will be seen across Israeli media in the coming hours and days.

As those photos were being taken in a game closed behind closed doors, the Irish team could be seen in the background; upon Herlihy’s basket, they shook the officials’ hands, then immediately took to their bench, grabbed their gear and water and briskly headed to the dressing room. It said everything about how they felt about this Eurobasket qualifier: keep the head down, get in, get out, and try to move on from this whole thing as quickly and as soon as possible.

Only it’s not over; it’s not quite that simple. For one thing there is a return fixture scheduled for November between the teams; take it, with relations as toxic as they are between both associations, it will hardly be in Dublin; it might even be Riga again.

After the game team coach James Weldon accepted it was “a very pressurised week” but praised his young squad for handling with “incredible maturity”. His praise was warranted; considering they were down so many senior players, including five who refused to play against Israel, it was a notable effort, with 19-year-old Waterford Wildcat Sarah Hickey giving the best individual performance by an Irish senior women’s international player since the programme was restored in 2016; in the end she would register 22 points and 13 rebounds in her side’s 87-57 defeat.

“It’s been difficult for all of us,” Weldon would say, “but we kept it tight and kept it together and all I can say is that we did not back down out there today.

“I would prefer to be talking about basketball and not this but look, we didn’t engage in the pre-match activities as a direct result of those unwarranted and unacceptable comments from the Israeli camp about our players. It was hugely disappointing. We came here for a game of basketball.”

They got much more than that. It was always going to be much more than that, as Israel well knew. In the lead up to the game their squad provocatively posed with armed IDF officers. After it their basketball federation slammed “the shameful performance of Ireland” for dispensing with the normal pre-match formalities.

“It was much more than a victory,” captain Eden Rothberg said. “It became personal. It was very disrespectful to see them in the anthem, disrespecting [us].

Coach Sharon Drucker was particularly incensed – and gleeful afterwards. “They received their punishment today.”

As for Sa’ar, whose pre-match comments was what sealed the Irish delegation’s decision to mount a protest, she was pushed forward for further quotes than encouraged to keep the head down. “We screamed the anthem and sang with pride. We need to show the whole word that we are Israel. And we will stay here.”

Which is why they remained on the court afterwards, waving and posing with the flag.