IRELAND MEN’S 7S captain Harry McNulty said he was proud of his team after their sixth-place finish at the Olympics in Paris.
The Irish side were touted as medal contenders and started their pool campaign well before a defeat to New Zealand sent them into a tough quarter-final against Fiji.
McNulty and his team-mates came close to causing an upset in that clash with the Fijians but lost narrowly and went on to be beaten by New Zealand again in their fifth-place play-off yesterday.
“Proud, very proud,” said McNulty of his feelings about Ireland’s effort at the Olympics.
“Yeah, you want to be in the medals but I think if you look across the board where different teams finished, it never really is a reflection of how good teams are, depending on where they finish today.
“New Zealand won all three games in the pool and then lost in the quarters. Argentina lost in the quarters. They won the [World SVNS] Series. We lost by a couple of points to Fiji. It’s so tight. It’s all so close. So, you know, you can get bogged down in all of it, and can you win this? Can you win that?
“But like, at the end of the day, I’m getting so many messages from people who are so proud of us. That’s what we wrote down as a team at the beginning of the year was to inspire our friends, our family, to hopefully inspire Ireland as well, and people maybe who don’t know much about the game. And I think we’ve done that.
“We’ve had a lot of fun over the last couple of days, and I think we’ve inspired a lot of the other athletes that are in the village as well. They were saying how much of a boost it has really given them, so hopefully we can push them on as well.”
The men’s 7s team will stick around in Paris in the coming days to enjoy the Games and offer support to the Ireland women’s 7s team, who get their campaign underway this afternoon against Great Britain [KO 2.30pm Irish time].
McNulty said his advice to the women’s team would be to keep doing what got them to the Olympics in the first place.
As for his own future, 31-year-old McNulty said he will take time to consider whether he wants to play on with Ireland 7s.
This was his second Olympics and he knows he has a big decision to make in the coming weeks. He’s not the only one in the Ireland squad who will consider retirement.
“I think there’s a few of us who want to take a bit of time for this,” said McNulty. “I think we get a month or maybe two months to kind of sit back, reflect, look at us and see, you know, do we want to come back and give it another crack or do we want to just continue carrying on any new adventure.
“So look, we’ll see. I’ve had the best time ever. It’s been an honour to be able to represent Ireland in an Olympic Games and it’s been so fun. So definitely take some time to decompress, chill out and think about my future and see what happens from there.”
One thing McNulty would love to see in the future is a big 7s event on Irish soil.
“I think that would be huge,” he said. “I think you would see a full stadium of Irish people in a heartbeat. I just think it would be great for the game. I would like to see the development of the sevens game, the young level.
“It’s just the one area where we haven’t had an opportunity to develop the programme. It’s only been around for nine years. So whether that’s in schools or just clubs in the summer for kids who aren’t going away.
“It’s also a fantastic opportunity for kids who might not actually be making a team, just because everyone’s going through different developmental stages, but they get to run around, more space, more time on the ball, more opportunities to pass and tackle, so they can actually gain some confidence.
“And you never know, those kids might end up actually pursuing the 15s route and becoming, you know, future stars of Ireland, or they might find themselves in the sevens.
“But I just think it’s another great avenue.
“It can take you around the world. It can bring you to an Olympic Games.”
- With reporting by Sinéad O’Carroll.
