{"id":341219,"date":"2026-03-11T21:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T21:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/341219\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T21:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T21:24:09","slug":"ireland-must-beat-bosnia-and-israel-to-keep-hopes-alive-in-eurobasket-qualifiers-after-defeat-to-luxembourg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/341219\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland must beat Bosnia and Israel to keep hopes alive in EuroBasket qualifiers after defeat to Luxembourg"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nWomen’s EuroBasket 2027 qualifier: Luxembourg 85 Ireland 73\n<\/p>\n

\"Ireland's<\/p>\n

Ireland’s Hazel Finn scored 15 points against Luxembourg. Photo: Piaras \u00d3 M\u00eddheach\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n

Ireland face an uphill battle to make the second round of the Women\u2019s EuroBasket 2027 qualifiers after an 85-73 defeat away to Luxembourg.<\/p>\n

James Weldon\u2019s side must win their remaining games against Bosnia and Herzegovina and Israel to give themselves the best chance of advancing out of Group A.<\/p>\n

Ireland, ranked 29 places behind the world No 54 side, trailed Luxembourg throughout and were 45-33 behind at half-time. Anne Simon and Dionne Madjo caused problems when Luxembourg beat Ireland 69-53 in Dublin last November, and again wreaked havoc in the Grand Duchy.<\/p>\n

The duo scored 26 and 14 points, respectively, but it was Joyce Isi Etute who did the most damage, with 27 points and 19 rebounds.<\/p>\n

Ireland were without Claire Melia, who had told the Irish Independent she was not injured, contradicting an earlier Basket Ireland statement. And they were not helped by a slow start, which left the hosts with a 22-17 lead at the end of the first quarter.<\/p>\n

Abigail Rafferty and Hazel Finn led the Irish scorers with 17 and 15, respectively, but it was not enough to bridge the gap.<\/p>\n

Ireland\u2019s focus turns to Zenica on Saturday when they face Bosnia before their controversial tie with Israel in the neutral venue of Riga on St Patrick\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Women’s EuroBasket 2027 qualifier: Luxembourg 85 Ireland 73 Ireland’s Hazel Finn scored 15 points against Luxembourg. Photo: Piaras…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9485,61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-341219","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-barry-lennon","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}