It was a another difficult Day 1 for Ireland in the World Rugby Women’s Sevens Series as, despite a Pool stage win against Japan, they find themselves in the Bowl Play off once again having failed to qualify for the Cup Quarter Finals on points difference. 

Their first game on Day 2 is against Brazil and it kicks off at 19:28 on Sunday 17th April. 

Day 1 highlights below: 

Ireland Match Times/Results – Langford Sevens Saturday 16th April.

19:00	England Women	29 – 05	Ireland Women
22:14	Canada Women	26 – 00	Ireland Women
01:06	Ireland Women	21 – 14	Japan Women

Ireland Women Sevens: Katie Fitzhenry, Kim Flood, Stacey Flood, Shannon Houston, Claire Keohane, Alison Miller, Lucy Mulhall, Amee-Leigh Crowe,  Sene Naoupu, Audrey O’Flynn, Hannah Tyrrell, Megan Williams. 

Round 1. 

Ireland and England women opened up the tournament with an entertaining game. Ireland opened the scoring with a try from Audrey O’Flynn and the Girls in Green controlled much of the first half. However England hit back with a try from Hunt and they eventually wore Ireland down to take a 12 – 7  on the stroke of half time through a try from Scarratt converted by McLean. 

The second half was pretty one sided as Ireland struggled to compete at the breakdown. Ireland did make a few breaks and their passing was pretty good but as soon as they went to ground they lost possession. McLean, Richardson and Waterman all crossed for converted tries to give England a comfortable 29 – 5 win. 

In the other match in Ireland’s Pool Canada beat Japan 38 – 0.

Round 2

Ireland struggled with the physical game of the Canadian hosts going down 26 – 0 in he second round game. In fact it looked as though the Irish teams attention turned to the final Pool game against Japan as soon as Canada broke from deep for their opening score by Landry. 

They did defend robustly in the first half to keep the score to 7 – 0 at the break but a second half brace by Mack decided he game before Russell crossed to wrap up a comfortable win for the hosts. 

In the other Pool match Japan played a clever game to narrowly lose 28 – 22 to England, the conversions making the difference as both teams scored four tries each. Ireland will need to find something special in the final Pool game if they are going to progress to the quarter finals!

Round 3.

Ireland get their first win of Day 1 with a 21 – 14 defeat of Japan so we have to wait to see if it’s enough to get them into the Quarter Finals. 

Ireland’s tries came from Stacey Flood and Amee-Leigh Crowe in the first half with Alison Miller getting the decider in the second. Lucy Mulhall converted all three. 

With Canada beating England 5 – 0 in the other Pool match, Ireland end up in third place in Pool C, unfortunately it’s not enough to get them into the Cup Quarter Finals and they find themselves slugging it out in the bottom basement once again.