By Jonathan Bowen
What a World Cup tournament it was in South Africa, the Irish Men’s 7s rugby team winning a bronze medal and the Irish Women’s team finishing in a very respectable 7th position.
The men’s team started the tournament with solid wins in the pre Round of 16 stage against Portugal and then followed up that performance with a comprehensive win against England.
The defining game for the Irish men’s team was the quarterfinal against hosts South Africa. Ireland was not given much chance against them.
At half time Ireland were tied at 7 a piece and in the second half that is when they took their chances.
South Africa started making simple errors and Ireland took advantage of that. The team would go onto to score two tries in the second half, Conroy being the standout player, to win the game 24-14 and book a place in the semi-final against the All Blacks.
The semi-final was a story of opportunities lost. New Zealand scored two tries in the first two minutes of the game due to some bad Irish ball handling and lazy tackling. It was always going to be an uphill challenge for Ireland to come back from there.
However, the Irish team did throw everything at the All Blacks and in the sixth minute of the first half the All Blacks had a man sent to the bin for tackling a player in a try scoring position.
Ireland pounced and scored back-to-back tries on either side on the half while New Zealand had a man in the bin. That tied up the game up, but once New Zealand got their man back on the pitch, they were going to be hard to stop.
The All Blacks scored the winning try but it came after some furious Irish defending of their line. Ireland then had the kick off and sadly could not put the phased plays together to tie the game. It was a valiant defeat, and it earnt the team a shot at a bronze medal against the Australians.
The third-place playoff game was a true game of attrition. Australia opened the scoring with a well worked try however it was not long after the restart that Ireland hit back and scored a well-worked try to tie the game up at half time.
Australia again opened the scoring in the second half with a great try by the Nicholas Cage lookalike Cory Toole. Ireland then took control of the game.
Some great running play and a kick and chase by Terry Kennedy saw Ireland score the try to tie the game up with three minutes to go.
The final try scored by Ireland was by far their best. Some hard work in the phased play with a great instinctive kick by Terry Kennedy saw McNulty run into some space behind the Australian defense and score under the posts. The conversation was made and that secured Ireland the win and a well-deserved bronze medal.
The story for me of the tournament was the USA Women’s 7s team. The team finished in an amazing fouth place in the World Cup. The team had a notable win against Poland and a hard-fought victory against Canada in the quarterfinal. The team suffered an honorable loss in the semi-final to the eventual winners of the tournament Australia. That loss against Australia saw the US team earn a spot in the third-place playoff against France. Sadly, France was just too strong for them, and the team had to settle for a well earned fouth place. I think the future for the 7s competition in the US looks very bright indeed.
Over the next two weeks, I will be covering the 1st and 2nd test matches between New Zealand and Australia who will be playing for the Bledisloe Cup.
Can Ian Foster and Joe Schmidt team do what they have been doing since 2002 and continue to defend the Bledisloe Cup or will the upsets for the New Zealand team continue and Australia finally win back the cup?
You will read all the stories and hear all the behind-the-scenes stories of the two matches right here in the Irish Examiner USA!