The Red Bull International Rugby 7s tournament was held at at the national football centre, St. George’s Park, Burton upon Trent, between 15-17 May.
the tournament was organised by the RFU to give Team GB some much needed game time as they try to establish some sort of familiarity amongst their players, from across GB, ahead of the Olympics in July. France, who have the Olympic Repechage coming up at the end of June, used the tournament to test the depth of their squad.
Ireland who have no competitive fixtures in the current schedule would have been happy to get some game time, after a year without, though they may be disappointed with a 25% win return despite starting their experienced players in most of the games.
Results
Saturday 15th May 2021
| Ireland | 12 | – | 14 | France |
| Team GB | 29 | – | 21 | Ireland |
| Team GB | 24 | – | 26 | France |
Sunday 16th May 2021
| Ireland | 24 | – | 7 | France |
| Team GB | 26 | – | 7 | Ireland |
| Team GB | 12 | – | 26 | France |
MONday 17th May 2021
| Ireland | 5 | – | 42 | France |
| Team GB | 19 | – | 19 | Ireland |
| Team GB | 33 | – | 7 | France |
Standings
| Team | P | W | D | PD | PTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| France | 6 | 4 | 0 | 12 | 14 |
| Team GB | 6 | 3 | 1 | 37 | 13 |
| Ireland | 6 | 1 | 1 | (49) | 9 |
Who did what?
Beyond game time it’s difficult to say what coach Aiden McNulty was looking to get out of this competition. With nothing to play for in the foreseeable future, and as good as a bye announced today for qualification for the 2022 Sevens World Cup, it seemed like an ideal opportunity to look at the depth of the squad.
Instead, all the dual internationals from the Six Nations made a re-appearance, along with the 7s regulars, and those that travelled in hope rather than expectation were restricted to starts in 1 game.
Appearances
Given that the tournament was pulled together in short order, and that a quarter of the players didn’t have numbers on their shirts, we’ve pulled together our best estimate of who was involved in each game based on displayed team sheets, when available.
In M4 Stacey Flood definitely made an appearance in the second half despite not being on that game’s team sheet and in M6 no team sheet was available.
The players used over the tournament are shown below and we have ranked them by their appearances over the three days – 2 points for a starting appearance (S) and one point for a replacement appearance (R)
| PLAYER | CLUB | M1 | M2 | M3 | M4 | M5 | M6** | RANK |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Murphy-Crowe, Amee Leigh | Railway Union | S | S | S | S | R | S | 11 |
| Higgins, Eve | Railway Union | S | S | S | S | R | S | 11 |
| Burns, Megan | Tullamore | S | R | S | S | R | S | 10 |
| Hogan, Brittany | Old Belvedere | S | S | S | S | S | 10 | |
| Mulhall, Lucy | Rathdrum | S | S | S | S | S | 10 | |
| Lane, Emily | Blackrock | S | R | S | S | S | 9 | |
| Flood, Stacey | Railway Union | S | S | S | R* | S | 9 | |
| Boles, Claire | Railway Union | R | R | R | R | S | R | 7 |
| Heffernan, Katie | Railway Union | R | S | S | R | R | 7 | |
| Farrell McCabe, Katie | Suttonians | R | R | R | R | S | R | 7 |
| Nic a Bhaird, Deirbhile | Old Belvedere | R | R | R | R | S | R | 7 |
| Fitzhenry, Katie | Blackrock | S | R | S | R | 6 | ||
| Moore, Grace | Railway Union | R | R | S | 4 | |||
| Reilly, Aoibheann | Blackrock | R | R | S | 4 | |||
| Deely, Méabh | Balckrock | S | 2 | |||||
| Liston, Maeve | Balckrock | R | 1 |
Old Belvedere’s Brittany Hogan ranked the highest of the Ulster players, starting in five out of six games. Claire Boles appeared in all six squads but was only in the starting team once and Maeve Liston had to make do with one appearance as a replacement.
Points Scored
Ireland scored 88 points, the points coming from 14 tries and 9 conversions giving a conversion rate of 64%. The Ireland scorers are shown below.
| PLAYER | CLUB | M1 | M2 | M3 | M4 | M5 | M6 | PTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mulhall, Lucy | Rathdrum | 1C | 2T, 3C | 2C | 1C | 1T, 2C | 33 | |
| Murphy-Crowe, Amee Leigh | Railway Union | 2T | 1T | 2T | 1T | 30 | ||
| Burns, Megan | Tullamore | 1T | 5 | |||||
| Flood, Stacey | Railway Union | 1T | 5 | |||||
| Higgins, Eve | Railway Union | 1T | 5 | |||||
| Lane, Emily | Blackrock | 1T | 5 | |||||
| Moore, Grace | Railway Union | 1T | 5 | |||||
| TOTAL | – | 12 | 21 | 24 | 7 | 5 | 19 | 88 |
Sevens stalwarts Amee Leigh Murphy Crowe and Lucy Mulhall accounted for 75% of the points scored between them.
