The Ireland Men Sevens team recorded a third place finish in the Rugby Europe Olympic Qualifying competition in Colomiers, France over the weekend.
The result means that Ireland go through to the final 2020 Olympic Qualifying Repechage in June 2020 where they will have one last chance to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics
The team recorded four wins and a draw from six matches scoring 27 tries and 17 conversions (conversion rate 63%) for a total of 169 points. They conceded 10 tries, six of which were converted for a total of 62 points against.
Ireland’s results over the two days are as follows.
| Day 1 | Pool B | Ireland | 41 | 0 | Ukraine |
| Day 1 | Pool B | Ireland | 52 | 14 | Russia |
| Day 1 | Pool B | Ireland | 17 | 17 | Spain |
| Day 2 | Cup QF | Ireland | 21 | 0 | Germany |
| Day 2 | Cup SF | France | 19 | 12 | Ireland |
| Day 2 | 3rd Place | Ireland | 26 | 12 | Portugal |
Good, but was it good enough?
Ireland were one of six Tier 2 countries in the competition. They have been at the top of Tier 2 for a couple of seasons and will be a Tier 1 side next season after qualifying for the World Series in April.
However, finishing in the top three in this competition, at the expense of Tier 1 side Spain, is still a big achievement
| Tier 1 | France, England, Spain, |
| Tier 2 | Ireland, Germany, Portugal, Italy, Russia, Georgia |
| Tier 3 | Ukraine, Lithuania, Hungary |
Ireland defeated all Tier 2 and 3 sides that they played (Ukraine, Russia, Germany and Portugal). They drew their match against Tier 1 opponents Spain and lost to France, the other Tier 1 side they faced.
| STANDARD | PL | W | D | PD | WIN% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | (7) | 25% |
| Tier 2 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 73 | 100% |
| Tier 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 41 | 100% |
They did what they needed to do and their campaign can only be regarded as a success.
Looking at their matches against Tier 1 opposition in more detail.
The drawn game against Spain seemed to take more out of the Spanish than it did Ireland with Spain going on the lose against Portugal in the next round.
In their match against France they lost by the odd try in five and were competitive throughout with tournament hosts France relieved to kick the ball dead at the end of the game.
Who did what?
The Ireland squad and the points scored in each of their matches is shown below.
| PLAYER | CLUB | UKR | RUS | ESP | GER | FRA | POR | TOT |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jordan Conroy | Buccaneers | 10 | 20 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 45 | |
| Billy Dardis | UCD | 9 | 10 | 7 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 36 |
| Ian Fitzpatrick | Lansdowne | 5 | 5 | 10 | ||||
| Jack Kelly | Dublin University | 10 | 5 | 15 | ||||
| Terry Kennedy | St Mary’s College | 5 | 5 | 5 | 15 | |||
| Foster Horan | Lansdowne | 5 | 5 | |||||
| Adam Leavy | Lansdowne | 5 | 5 | |||||
| Hugo Keenan | UCD | 5 | 5 | |||||
| Harry McNulty | UCD | 5 | 10 | 15 | ||||
| Bryan Mollen | Blackrock College | 0 | ||||||
| Greg O’Shea | Shannon | 5 | 5 | 10 | ||||
| Mark Roche | Blackrock College | 2 | 2 | 4 | 8 | |||
| TOTALS | – | 41 | 52 | 17 | 21 | 12 | 26 | 169 |
Jordan Conroy tops the Ireland scorers table with his nine tries giving him a 45 point haul.
Captain Billy Dardis is the second highest scorer, his 36 points coming from two tries and 13 conversions.
What happens now?
Ireland and France go through to the final Olympic qualifying event at a date and venue to be determined in 2020.
They will be joined by the two runners-up from Africa (TBD November 2019), Asia (TBD November 2019), North America (Jamaica and Mexico), Oceania (TBD November 2019) and South America (Brazil and Chile) and will play at a twelve-team qualification tournament, with the winner advancing to participate at Tokyo 2020.
At the moment France and Ireland are the highest ranking teams participating in this final repechage but they are likely to be joined by either Australia or Samoa from the Oceania group, both of who finished above France in the 2019 World Series.
At the moment Ireland would go into that final repechage as third seeds, behind France and either Australia or Samoa, but they have a big season ahead as they compete in the World Series as a core team for the first time.
All to play for.
