Uncertainty about participation and funding difficulties meant the Cypriot men's basketball team had no warm-up matches, which they would normally schedule ahead of the games, said head coach Panayiotis Yiannaras.
The British and Irish Lions, a team of the best rugby players from the British Isles, got its 2013 tour off to a winning start with a 59-8 victory over the Barbarians, an international invitational team, in a warm-up match in Hong Kong.
Saadane's decision to delay his team's first World Cup warm-up until just a fortnight before kick-off now appears to have been misguided as his team looked rusty and disorganised in Dublin.