The IRFU Volkswagen Mixed Tag competition kicked off at Belfast Harlequins RFC on Thursday evening with 12 teams competing in the Ulster leg.
The competition was held with Covid-19 precautions in place which involved a strict schedule for the teams’ arrivals, limited access to the playing pitch and rugby balls and other equipment disinfected between matches.
The twelve teams had been split into three groups (see below) and they will be playing within their groups for the first three weeks to decide placings for the second half of the tournament.
Results
The results, by group, are shown below.
| GROUP 1 | ||
| HashTags | 28 – 8 | Carlingford Knights |
| Space Cadets | 29 – 14 | Derryvolgie Halss |
| GROUP 2 | ||
| Tag Heures | 17 – 11 | Flatliners |
| Friesian Taggers | 34 – 17 | Taggers Bay |
| GROUP 3 | ||
| Tag My Pitch Up | 17 – 13 | Sheep Taggers |
| Galacticos | 17 – 7 | Runaways |
Standings
This gives the tables as follows.
| GROUP 1 | P | W | PD | BP | PTS |
| HashTags | 1 | 1 | 20 | 0 | 4 |
| Space Cadets | 1 | 1 | 15 | 0 | 4 |
| Derryvolgie Halss | 1 | 0 | (15) | 0 | 0 |
| Carlingford Knights | 1 | 0 | (20) | 0 | 0 |
| GROUP 2 | P | W | PD | BP | PTS |
| Friesian Taggers | 1 | 1 | 17 | 0 | 4 |
| Tag Heures | 1 | 1 | 6 | 0 | 4 |
| Flat Liners | 1 | 0 | (6) | 0 | 0 |
| Taggers Bay | 1 | 0 | (17) | 0 | 0 |
| GROUP 3 | P | W | PD | BP | PTS |
| Galacticos | 1 | 1 | 10 | 0 | 4 |
| Tag My Pitch Up | 1 | 1 | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| Sheep Taggers | 1 | 0 | (4) | 1 | 1 |
| Runaways | 1 | 0 | (10) | 0 | 0 |
We caught up with Benny Glendinning and Aoife Gordon from Tag Heuers after their opening win against Flat Liners.
For my first visit to an official tag tournament I must admit I did find it hard keeping track of the scores with female players getting three points and male players one but thanks to Claire McAteer at Tag in Ulster we do have the leading scorers which is something we’ll be monitoring throughout the tournament.
Leading Scorers
The leading scorers after Week 1 are shown below.
| PLAYER | TEAM | TRIES |
|---|---|---|
| Conor Gilloway | Flatliners | 4 |
| Joanne Orr | Friesian Taggers | 4 |
| Mark Coughlin | Derryvolgie | 4 |
| Colin Millar | Hashtags | 3 |
| Gerard Kelly | Flatliners | 3 |
| Hannah Lewis | Hashtags | 3 |
| Hazel Jordan | Tag My Pitch Up | 3 |
| Heidi Brede | Space Cadets | 3 |
| Julie Dennison | Friesian Taggers | 3 |
| Peter Dawson | Hashtags | 3 |
| Ryan Trainor | Flatliners | 3 |
| Zahra Bonnar | Friesian Taggers | 3 |
Galleries
We have six galleries from the matches below with over five hundred images across the games. Pitch 1 games were covered by Bob Given Photography and Pitch 2 by John McMurtry.
