After all the discussion on the rights and wrongs of Ireland’s basketball team playing Israel in a European qualifier in Latvia on Thursday evening, the game is set to go ahead and, writes Malachy Clerkin, “no amount of noise or pressure from the outside is going to change that fact”. Basketball Ireland CEO John Feehan reiterated his sympathy for the people of Gaza, but insisted that a boycott of the game wouldn’t make “a blind bit of difference”. “I’m not prepared to destroy my sport for a gesture that will have no impact,” he said of the fine of up to €180,000 and a potential five-year ban from international competition that Ireland would incur if they refused to play.
Dublin Gaelic footballer Martha Byrne has sympathy for the Irish players who have been put in this impossible situation, five of them opting not to play in the game. Last month, before their league game against Kerry, the Dublin team held up a banner calling for a ceasefire in Palestine. Byrne tells Gordon Manning that she is sure the players will look back at that protest as “something we’ll be proud of”.
On the pitch, Dublin’s women picked up their first league win of the season against Mayo in Ballina last Sunday, but their men have suffered two defeats on the trot, to Monaghan and Mayo. “It’s time to start picking up a couple of points,” Cormac Costello tells Gordon, “we don’t want to get relegated again.”
Seán Moran wonders, though, if the leading counties are all that bothered about how they fare in the competition, its “daft scheduling” leaving a “tiny gap before the championship begins”. The reasons are mounting, he reckons, “for a variety of counties not to challenge for the league”.
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Ireland’s challenge for this year’s Six Nations title got off to a mighty start in Marseille last Friday, Gordon D’Arcy noting that they “picked up exactly where they left off from the World Cup with high-tempo rugby”. The potential “for a banana-skin performance” against Italy on Sunday, he writes, “seems far removed”.
The Garbisi brothers, outhalf Paolo and scrumhalf Alessandro, will hope, though, to contribute to the mother of all slip-ups, Johnny Watterson looking back on their performances for Italy against England last weekend when they made their first ever starts in a Test match.
And John O’Sullivan brings news of Jerry Flannery’s imminent move to South Africa where he will team up again with Rassie Erasmus, his old Munster boss, having been signed up as a defence coach for the world champions.
Ian O’Riordan, meanwhile, points out there are only 169 days to go before the start of the Olympic Games. And if you fancy attending one of the events in Paris, Thursday morning presents one of the last opportunities to purchase tickets when they go on sale online on a first-come, first-served basis. Ian has all the details.
TV Watch: There’s a heap of football on your screens today, including both Africa Cup of Nations semi-finals - Nigeria v South Africa (Sky Sports Football and BBC2, 5.0) and Côte d’Ivoire v DR Congo (Sky Sports Premier League and BBC3, 8.0) - while UTV have the FA Cup fourth round replay between Aston Villa and Chelsea (8.0).
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