Ireland Women finished their third competitive Sevens Tournament with yet more silverware, this time picking up the Plate Trophy in the London Invitational Sevens at Twickenham.
Having lost to Canada (22 – 5), USA (17 -14) and Russia (24 -10) in the Pool matches yesterday Ireland faced the daunting task of, top seeds and hosts, England in the knock out stages early this morning and it looked as though it was going to be a long day as the Irish girls slipped to their fourth successive defeat going down 12 – 0 despite a second half rally.
The loss, however put them into the Plate competition where they were drawn against the temperamental French and the Irish girls came out on top with a 12 – 7 win thanks to scores from Naimh Briggs and Jenny Murphy.
The win put Ireland into the Plate final against an impressive Spain.
The girls certainly left the best to last as they stormed to a 12 – 0 lead at half time thanks to tries from Ashling Hutchings and Lynne Cantwell with Briggs converting the second.
Cantwell scored early in the second half, Briggs again converting, to secure the game and well timed run from deep by Shannon Houston wrapped it up. Claire Keohane slotted over the conversion to give Ireland an extraordinary 26 – 0 win.
IRELAND WOMEN’S SEVENS: Jenny Murphy (Leinster), Claire Molloy (Exile), Niamh Briggs (Munster), Jeannette Feighery (Munster), Claire Keohane (Munster), Lynne Cantwell (Exile), Alison Miller (Connacht), Shannon Houston (Leinster), Amy Davis (Ulster), Ashleigh Baxter (Ulster), Niamh Kavanagh (Munster), Ashling Hutchings (Munster)
FRU OPINION
No one will blame the IRFU tomorrow if they try to extend the feel good factor in the women’s game by celebrating this tournament as impressive outing in an unbroken line of silverware since Ireland Women won the Grand Slam.
However, in the three tournaments so far Ireland have only won one pool game out of nine, I believe, and have picked up, rather efficiently it must be said, the scraps at the lower levels of the women’s sevens game.
In their defence it has to be remembered that this is their first real season competing in the shortened format but what continues to worry me is the over-reliance on key players from the 15-a-side game and the lack of development of out and out sevens players.
It may be a case of consolidating a smaller squad of proven talent in the hope that they can produce the goods in the World Championship at the end of next month and then developing true sevens players to compete in the Olympics in 2016. I would like to think that this will be the case as continually relying on the same small band of elite players will do no favours for either code.
