Ireland Women Sevens Squad continue on their journey towards Olympic Sevens qualification this Saturday and Sunday as they compete in Round 4 of the HSBC World Rugby Women’s Sevens in Langford, Canada.
The players will be hoping to build on last weekend’s Atlanta outing when they equalled their highest ever World Series finish by picking up the Bowl Trophy, winning both of their knock out games in Day 2, as Ulster’s Ashleigh Baxter told the FRU:
Confidence is high now we have shaken off our losing streak, everybody loves that winning feeling, so hopefully it will continue into this weekend.
As we’d indicated before though, this season is all about that final Olympic Qualification competition, which takes place in Dublin at the end of June, and Ireland need to measure their progress against their two main competitors for that final Olympic place namely Russia and Spain.
The team showed significant progress last time out losing narrowly to Russia in the Pool stages and beating Spain in the Bowl Semi Final and this time round they will be looking to get out of their Pool and into the Cup Quarter Finals. It’s a difficult enough challenge with two of the top four sides in the world in their group but it may be achievable with a win against Japan and narrow losses to England and hosts Canada.
Pools – Langford Sevens
| POOL A | POOL B | POOL C |
| Australia | New Zealand | England |
| Russia | USA | Canada |
| France | Fiji | Ireland |
| Brazil | Spain | Japan |
It’ll be another late night if you are wanting to watch all of Ireland’s matches on Day 1 as the schedule rolls over into the early hours of Sunday morning thanks to the time difference. If you can’t make it, rest assured, we’ll have updates on their progress for when you get up for your Sunday Park Run! 🙂
Match Schedule, Saturday 16th April.
| 19:00 | England Women | v | Ireland Women |
| 22:14 | Canada Women | v | Ireland Women |
| 01:06 | Ireland Women | v | Japan Women |
All times UK/IRE.
Squad News.
With a few knocks last time out, it looks like Ashleigh Baxter hasn’t fully recovered with the experienced Shannon Houston coming into the squad as replacement.
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.
