Updated Wednesday 15.00
IRELAND’S MEN’S SEVENS team will be part of this weekend’s Olympic repechage qualifying tournament, when they will have their final shot at securing a place in this summer’s Rio Olympics.
Ireland were buoyed by victory in last weekend’s first leg of the Rugby Europe Men’s Sevens Trophy in Sweden, but they remain heavy underdogs to qualify for the Olympics this weekend.
The repechage tournament takes place this Saturday 18 June and Sunday 19 June at the Stade Louis II in Monaco, when top seeds Samoa will attempt to take the final qualification spot for the Rio Games.
Favourites Samoa – who won the Paris 7s last month – are joined in this weekend’s tournament by fellow HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series sides Canada and Russia.
With Samoa, Zimbabwe and Tonga in their pool, the challenge for Ireland is a daunting one. Two teams will advance from each pool into the quarter-finals, from where it will be knock-out rugby straight into the final.
The victor of that final will join hosts Brazil, Fiji, Great Britain, New Zealand, South Africa, Argentina, USA, France, Japan, Australia and Kenya in the 2016 Olympic Sevens in August.
It’s an outside shot for Anthony Eddy, Stan McDowell and James Topping’s side but last weekend was a hugely positive one for the men’s programme as Ireland were convincing winners of the first leg of the Rugby Europe Men’s Sevens Trophy in Malmo.
Having won the European Division C and Division B titles last summer, Ireland will attempt to secure the the second leg of the Trophy in Prague on 2 and 3 July.
Victory there would see Ireland qualify for the 2017 Rugby Europe Men’s Sevens Grand Prix Series, which is a far stronger standard of sevens rugby and involves teams from England, Scotland and Wales.
Qualification into the Grand Prix Series would move Ireland one step close to their eventual goal of being promoted into the top-tier World Sevens Series.
Last weekend saw Ireland hammer hosts Sweden 57-0 in the final of the first leg of the Trophy competition. St. Mary’s man Steve Toal-Lennon scored a hat-trick in the final, while UCD’s Barry Daly bagged a brace and captain Tom Daly, Harry McNulty of UCD, Lansdowne’s Ian Fitzpatrick and Young Munster centre Dan Goggin also dotted down. Billy Dardis contributed six conversions for Ireland.
The first-leg victory leaves Ireland with a maximum 20 series points and they will attempt to wrap up promotion into the Grand Prix Series in the Czech Republic next month.
This weekend, however, the focus will be on giving their unlikely shot at Olympics qualification everything they have.
Ireland men’s 7s squad
Adam Byrne – UCD / Leinster
Tom Daly – Lansdowne FC / Leinster
Barry Daly – UCD
Billy Dardis – UCD / Leinster
Ian Fitzpatrick – Lansdowne FC / Leinster
Dan Goggin –Young Munster / Munster
Shane Layden – Buccaneers
Mick McGrath – Clontarf FC
Harry McNulty – UCD
Josh Rowland – Ireland Sevens
Steve Toal-Lennon – St. Mary’s RFC
Alex Wootton – Garryowen / Munster
Ireland men’s 7s fixtures for Olympic qualifying tournament:
Zimbabwe v Ireland, Pool A
Saturday 18 June, 10.22am Irish time, Stade Louis II
Samoa v Ireland, Pool A
Saturday 18 June, 1.15pm Irish time, Stade Louis II
Tonga v Ireland, Pool A
Saturday 18 June, 4.30pm Irish time, Stade Louis II, Monaco
Knock-out games
Sunday 19 June
__________
The Ireland women’s sevens team, meanwhile, are two weekends away from their shot at qualification for the Olympics, a target which is far more realistic.
Dublin plays host to the Women’s Sevens Olympic Repechage tournament on Saturday 25 June and Sunday 26 June at the UCD Bowl, when Ireland go up against 15 other teams for the final place in the women’s Olympic Sevens in Rio.
Spain and Russia – both World Sevens Series circuit sides – are likely to provide stiff competition for Ireland in two weekends’ time, while Kazakhstan, Hong Kong, China, Tunisia, Zimbabwe, Madagascar, Portugal, Mexico, Trinidad & Tobago, Samoa, Cook Islands, Argentina and Venezuela will also be present in Dublin.
Ireland warmed up for the Olympic qualifying tournament with a highly-creditable fourth-placed finish at last weekend’s Rugby Europe Women’s Sevens Grand Prix Series in Kazan, Russia.
A 19-10 win over Spain in the quarter-finals – with the prolific Alison Miller scoring two tries and Louise Galvin dotting down the third – was a timely boost before defeats to eventual champions France and a very strong Great Britain side.
The Kazan-hosted tournament also saw Ireland 15s captain Niamh Briggs play senior international sevens for the first time since 2013.
The second leg of the women’s Grand Prix series takes place in Malemort, France on 24 and 25 September.
Ireland will hope to head into that second leg having featured at the Olympics, with the Dublin qualifier this month providing them with their final chance to qualify.
Hosts Brazil, Australia, Canada, Great Britain, New Zealand, Colombia, USA, France, Kenya, Fiji and Japan have already qualified for the Olympics and Ireland will look to clinch the final spot for Rio.
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Ffs sky sports. Not a live PL game on again tonight. I have been threatening to cancel sky for a while and I will tomorrow. Dodgy satalite box it is.
West Ham vs Villa is on BT. Yup, I know, I don’t understand that one either. I blame Michael Owen…
Sports coverage in Europe is absolutely dreadful. Asia and North America are light years ahead. Almost a full programe of matches and only is available via BT. Utterly poo situation
That’s because most people don’t care about football in those places.
Be ready for the hard sell when you go to leave sky. You should get it for free for 6 months if your insistence on leaving.
No even close to being worth over 90euros per month. I noticed the didn’t reduce their price when they lost the rights to the CL coverage. Its just to expensive to have both BT and Sky Sports.
MOTD though !
I said sports coverage. More than just football to watch.
MOTD is free on BBC
Unknown. But it not live
sky sports Germany.
Chat sh*t. Get banged.
Still had to watch it on laptop tonight
The pub for me when I want to watch a game.
I wouldn’t pay those extravagant prices.
I live in Canada. It’s actually well followed here huge immigrant population who love the footy. Plenty of locals watch it too. Get all the games covered apart from cup games
Marriage is not a word it’s a sentence..
Go on United.
Jeez it’s very open…. Leicester pace up front really troubling Lovren and Sakho..
You sound somehow surprised by that :)
Congrats Eoin.
Liverpool 2-1.Leicester to lose next 3 games as the wheels start to come off.
You got that monumentally wrong.
Eating my words as i type .Even if Liverpool get back all their injured players and get a run going ,they wont catch Spurs/Arsenal/Leicester for fourth .Go all out for Europa league is the only way now .
Well done Mystic Meg sure know your stuff.
There is also Man City , Southampton and West Ham ahead of Liverpool.
Your the mystic meg if you’ve never got a prediction wrong .A condescending mystic meg at that !
Ohhh someone get this kitty a saucer of milk.
At least u didn’t eat your victims
You forgot United Paul
It’s good to see league leaders get their own live blog………
Match available live via Mobdro on NBC Sports Network…
I wonder will Jurgena Flopp celebrate the loss tonight down with the Liverpool fans
C,mon United.
Woohoo. 1-0 up.
We scored in the first half again. 2 in a row now. Exciting stuff.
Holy fcuk we scored 2 in the first half. Really exciting stuff here now
2 goals in the first half. What’s going on?
Martial is continuing the recent excellent form, when he gets a bit and more experienced he will be some striker.
Good man Vardy !!
Game over.
Chat shit get banged!!
United win 3-0 at home for the first time in yonks and no live thread!!!
Congrats Eoin, Here’s hoping for three points for the Foxes to help top off the celebrations!
Had spurs, west ham, Portsmouth, Roma and “typical” arsenal for 254 quid. Absolutely ragin :(
Had the double on Spurs and west Ham to beat the handicap. Spurs are the only reliable team this season.
Portsmouth let you down aswell Don ,they drew.
Really? Taught they won one nil? Ah its not so bad then. As long as its not just one team I don’t mind
Big Rumour Giggs is taking over Celtic
You know how twitter goes. Some parody account says something then a couple hundred retweets later some rag of a Red Top Newspaper has an exclusive.
3-1 LFC
Hahahahaha
Up Mayo …., Sô
Congrats Eoin..
Comiserations eoin. I suppose you couldn’t stay happy all your life
Christian Fuchs? You’re god dam right he does!
Like a true Christian too
Any streaming sites??
Atdhenet.tv
streamline.to
Nigel, that’s a good stream. Cheers.
That’s the one I watch myself, epl site.com were showing games too
Waddle is going on that Vardy’s goal was genius. The only thing genius about it was knowing that the keeper was going to be stupid enough to be off his line.
Bitter about the goal ? 2-0 now
Hahaha slippy, let’s see how it goes for United in April when they play Leicester shall we?
April is a long way off yet , but a 3-0 win against Stoke so far isn’t bad . What’s with the slippy
Ron, why so salty?
Ron,
Vardy’s goal was an absolute worldy. You haven’t got a clue about football.
At least you were cute enough to stay away from Arsenal ,Ron best chance in years to win the league and they are blowing it .
Leicester will get a result against them as well and maybe City.
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