Captain Carroll ready to lead the line for Ireland

John Carroll is being thrown into the deep end as the new captain of the Irish men's basketball team ahead of two of their biggest games in recent memory, but it’s something he believes he’s ready for.

Carroll was named Ireland’s new skipper this week, following the surprise international retirement of Kyle Hosford.

News of Hosford’s retirement came just days ahead of Ireland’s the FIBA EuroBasket 2025 Pre-Qualifiers against Austria and Switzerland.

Ireland take on Austria in Salzburg on Thursday, followed three days later by their home clash with Switzerland and those two games will decide whether of not Ireland progress in qualification.

While Carroll admits that his sudden elevation to captaincy was a surprise, it’s a position he’s prepared to take over.

"It was a surprise because he’s still moving around well but I was ready because I was vice-captain already," he said, speaking to RTÉ Sport.

"We just have a lot of continuity with our roster and there’s more leaders than just me and the fact that we have a lot of veterans back is good too.

"I’m very honoured to be named captain. I’ve learned a lot of from Kyle and Jason Killeen before him on the leadership side and hopefully I can fill their shoes as captain going forward. It’s probably the proudest achievement of my basketball career to date."

Back-to-back wins over Cyprus mean that Ireland are very much still in the hunt to move on to round 2 of the pre-qualifiers despite losing to Austria and Switzerland last winter.

Ireland are a point behind both teams in the Group A table, ahead of the final round of games with top spot in the group still very much up for grabs.

Ireland suffered a 97-70 defeat to Austria last time, out but Carroll believes that that scoreline wasn’t a