Mayo's Finn impresses but Ireland fall to defeat against the Netherlands
Mayo's Dayna Finn and her Ireland team-mates were beaten 82-60 by the Netherlands in their opening FIBA Women’s EuroBasket 2023 qualifier in Amsterdam yesterday, undone by a strong opening quarter from the home side.
Dayna Finn had nine points and seven rebounds for her afternoon's work, while Claire Melia top scored for Ireland on 16 points and co-captain Edel Thornton also impressed with a 15-point haul along with five assists and two steals.
Ireland trailed 31-10 at the end of the first quarter and Finn took a heavy fall early in the second, which saw her take a break on the sidelines to ice her elbow area. Thankfully she emerged later in the quarter showing no ill-effects.
Ireland visibly grew in confidence in this quarter but by the end they still trailed by 21, 25-46, by the end of it.
In a strong third quarter, Ireland out-scored their opponents 20-15, with Melia and Edel Thornton to the fore, and by the end it was 61-45 in favour of the Netherlands.
Ireland couldn’t get any closer than that in the final quarter, however, and the Dutch closed out the game to win 82-60.
Speaking afterwards, head coach James Weldon said: “There was some outstanding defensive plays, but I just think we’re kind of disappointed. We were looking at the first quarter and we were kind of like ‘wow’ but then we were disappointed that we weren’t closer, you know. With five minutes to go it was a 15-, 16-point game.
“We just need to tidy up - eight turnovers in the first half is not good enough at this level, and again we improved on that in the second half, we limited it to four.
“But just overall you’ve got to be proud of it, after being out of the competition for so long. We talked about it all week, about having to learn to play at this level. We got plenty of lessons tonight, but we’ve got plenty of positives to take forward with us into Sunday.”
Ireland face the Czech Republic on Sunday in their next FIBA Women's EuroBasket 2023 qualifier. It tips off at 5 p.m. at the National Basketball Arena, a game which is live on TG4.