WITH hopes high but expectations considerably lower, the Irish badminton team will travel to the Czech Republic this morning for the qualifying stages of the Thomas Cup. They will compete in a group now completed by Guatemala after the late withdrawal of Iran.
With group seeds Austria virtually certain to emerge from Ireland's section, the Irish are likely to battle it out for second place with Hungary, while the Guatemalans are something of an unknown quantity at this level of competition.
One indication of actual expectations is that the side are due to fly home on Wednesday. That would need to be quickly changed if they survive the initial phase of the competition, although this appears to only become a realistic possibility if the Austrians fail to bring all of their players.
Certainly with a full panel they look strong enough to go through to stage two, where they would meet top seeds Denmark and two other sides, most likely Bulgaria and Scotland.
The main aim of the Irish management team, though, will be to ensure that the Austrian match on Tuesday evening is not merely an irrelevance if they can score victories over the Hungarians on Sunday and Guatemala on Monday, then the trip is likely to he judged reasonably satisfactory.
For Irish coach Mark Methven the priority this year has always been the European Championships in Denmark, where a place in the top 13 countries would mean avoiding a trip to next year's Helvetia Cup.
Unlike the Thomas and Uber events, the Europeans are based on mixed teams and the BUI yesterday announced a panel of eight to take part in the event Bruce Topping, Michael Watt, Donnie O'Halloran, Michael O'Meara, Sonya McGinn, Elaine Kiely, Ann Stephens and Caroline O'Sullivan are included.
That means that there is no place for either Graham Henderson or Bustari Eddie, who play in Prague this weekend.
Jim Colfor and Mark Peard, as well as national women's doubles champions Angela Carr and Annette Taylor, still miss out but, after a stormy couple of months justifying the selection for the Thomas Cup, this looks to be a far less controversial choice of personnel.
