Need for new teams now urgent

The precarious state of women's National League basketball is the focus of attention for the IBA's strategic board which has already met once and will do so regularly during the close season.

The fact that the league survived the 1998/99 campaign is a source of hope considering that there were only five teams competing at national level with only two of them from outside the Dublin area.

It is the deepest crisis that the women's game has ever faced and the situation compares very unfavourably with the national picture in the late 1980s when there were two full divisions and teams from relatively small communities like Castledermot were strong enough to win the national cup.

The primary concern now of the Women's Strategic Board is to secure a sixth team for the next campaign so that there can be a full roster of three games each weekend involving all participants. The absence of any representatives currently from the Cork or Kerry region is one major worry and the board will be looking in that direction particularly in an effort to encourage an existing club from that area to enter or re-enter the national structure or else seek a means of setting up a new regional club team.

Cork and Kerry remain as one of the strongest breeding grounds for players in Ireland and the entire south west area has a very strong history of national league success, with teams like Blarney and Tralee among the best in the country less than a decade ago.

On the international front, the Irish national women's team spent a fruitful week training and playing in France last week in preparation for their European championship qualifying campaign in late May.

The Irish women will face Greece, Slovenia, Moldova and Denmark in their qualifying group in Athens from May 19th to 23rd.

The Irish coach, Gerry Fitzpatrick, enjoyed the company of a guest adviser at the training camp. Reggie Grennan, an American who coaches at the college that Susan Moran attends, St Joseph's, Philadelphia, is an expert in back court play. She added an extra dimension to the five-hour daily training sessions.