The Front Row Union Sport - Ireland Men 7s: What to expect in Olympic Repechage

Ireland Men 7s: What to expect in Olympic Repechage

Jun 15, 2021

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Ireland Men 7s go forward to the Olympic Repechege in Monaco this weekend with a travelling team of 14 confirmed yesterday.

The last truly competitive game for the team was back in March 2020 in the World Rugby Sevens Series and head coach Anthony Eddy has placed his faith in the players involved that competition with 11 of the players involved named in the squad.

Series regulars, Aaron O’Sullivan, John O’Donnell and Liam Turner miss out on selection with bolters Ian Fitzpatrick, Sean Cribbin and Aaron Sexton forcing their way into the squad after a couple of hit outs against Team GB and the USA.

Ireland 7s Olympic Repechage Squad

We had been following that last World Series with the expectations of the Repechage and Olympics last year so we have some stats on how the players involved were performing. We’ve added the stats to the repechage squad below.

PLAYER	CLUB	S	R	GAMES	TRIES	POINTS
Jordan Conroy	Buccaneers	28	0	28	28	140
Jack Kelly	Dublin University	26	2	28	8	40
Billy Dardis	Terenure College	23	5	28	3	113
Adam Leavy	Lansdowne	15	13	28	1	5
Hugo Lennox	Skerries	15	11	26	2	12
Harry McNulty	LA Giltinis	25	0	25	4	20
Terry Kennedy	St Mary’s College	23	2	25	17	85
Greg O’Shea	Shannon RFC	8	17	25	5	25
Mark Roche	Lansdowne	4	18	22	0	16
Bryan Mollen	Blackrock College	0	12	12	0	0
Foster Horan	Lansdowne	11	0	11	4	20
Ian Fitzpatrick	Lansdowne	0	0	0	0	0
Sean Cribbin	Suttonians	0	0	0	0	0
Aaron Sexton	Malone/Ulster	0	0	0	0	0

KEY: S-Starter, R-Replacement, GAMES-Appearances

How the Repechage Works

There are 10 teams in the Men’s Repechage and they have been drawn into two pools of five teams, including one team from each of five pre-determined bands.

POOL A

France
Hong Kong
Chile
Uganda
Jamaica

POOL B

Samoa
Ireland
Tonga
Zimbabwe
Mexico

Teams will play against all four opponents in their pools with the top two teams from each pool progressing through to the knockout stages, culminating in the final with the winner booking their place on the plane to Tokyo.

Ireland’s pool fixtures are as follows, all times UK/IRE

Saturday, 19 June

08:50 Ireland v Zimbabwe
11:12 Ireland v Mexico
14:24 Ireland v Tonga

Sunday, 20 June

12:17 Ireland v Samoa

The Semi Finals should follow from 15:23 on the Sunday with the Final scheduled for 18:07 the same day.

Expectations

The expectations are for a France v Ireland final with France the favourites to qualify. France finished in 6th place in the truncated 2020 World Rugby Sevens Series some four places, and 23 points, above Ireland in 10th place.

Samoa are the team most likely to disrupt the expected final though they appeared to have gone off the boil slightly in the last Series with a 13th place finish, some 16 points behind Ireland.

None of the other teams are in the World Series and in theory shouldn’t be in the reckoning though Tonga, in Ireland’s group and Hong Kong, in France’s group could cause problems if the more experienced sides take their eye off the ball. In fact, Hong Kong are expected to qualify for the semifinals, along with France, and are Ireland’s likely opponents should Ireland win their group.

Previous Meetings

Ireland met France twice in the 2020 World Rugby Sevens Series the results as follows.

Hamilton, Jan 2020	France	17	–	7	Ireland
Vancouver, Mar 2020	France	22	–	21	Ireland

Ireland and Samoa only met once with Ireland taking that one.

Cape Town, Dec 2019

Ireland

–

Samoa

Who To Look Out For

Speedsters Jordan Conroy and Sexton should bring plenty of thrills with trademark long range run-ins the expectation. However, Terry Kennedy seems to have made the position of playmaker his own over the last 16 months and if he is on form and on the ball then Ireland should do very well.

The kicking of Billy Dardis and Mark Roche will become more important as the tournament progresses.