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Hugo Keenan in action against Uruguay. Yu Chun Christopher Wong/INPHO

Ireland left with work to do after Uruguay produce late comeback at Hong Kong 7s

Anthony Eddy’s side need to beat Russia tomorrow to advance to the quarter-finals.

IRELAND PAID THE price for taking their foot off the pedal on the opening day of the World Rugby World Series qualification tournament, as Uruguay staged a late comeback to leave Anthony Eddy’s side with work to do.

After opening their Hong Kong 7s campaign with a dominant win over Jamaica on Friday morning, Ireland raced into a commanding lead in their second pool game, before Uruguay overhauled a 19-point deficit to snatch a 26-26 draw.

It means Ireland will need to beat Russia in tomorrow morning’s final Pool F game to secure a passage through to the quarter-finals, with the overall tournament winner earning a place on next year’s World Sevens Series circuit.

Eddy’s side recorded a 26-0 win over Jamaica earlier in the day, a brace of tries from Foster Horan helping Ireland to a strong start, with Jordon Conroy and John O’Donnell also crossing at the Hong Kong Stadium. 

A first-half hat-trick from Terry Kennedy set Ireland on their way to a second big win of the day, but they were fortunate not to lose to Uruguay, the South Americans conjuring a stunning second-half revival. 

Two quick tries from Felipe Etcheverry put Uruguay within touching distance, and with seconds left on the clock, Diego Ardo chipped over the Irish defence and gathered to score to the left of the posts.

Substitute Tomas Ubilla had the chance to win the game for his side but he missed the conversion to let Ireland off the hook, who face Russia tomorrow morning at 3.08am Irish time.

Gavan Casey and Ryan Bailey are joined by Bernard Jackman to look back on a thrilling weekend of European rugby on the latest episode of The42 Rugby Weekly:


The42 Rugby Weekly / SoundCloud

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    Mute Paul Kennedy
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    Apr 5th 2019, 3:22 PM

    Who is the team to avoid, Chile? Today was a blip surely and we should be winning whole event right? We should of won last year if Japan hadn’t filled team with fijians

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    Mute SilexFlint
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    Apr 5th 2019, 3:58 PM

    @Paul Kennedy: Chile are pretty close to us competitively as they were beaten semi finalists last year too. Russia, who we share the pool with, were relegated from world series last year and are our closest opponents on the euro grand prix circuit. Germany who lost the past two finals of this event just about beat uganda and cook islands so far but didn’t look as impressive in last years European series. Tonga and Hong Kong could also be tough opposition.

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    Mute Eddie Hekenui
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    Apr 5th 2019, 3:06 PM

    You’d wonder where they got the report from because the description of the last try is wrong. It was a kick off that Ireland made an absolute mess of receiving. Player who fielded the ball tapped the ball back when he should’ve just held onto the ball with 20 seconds left on the clock.

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    Mute SilexFlint
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    Apr 5th 2019, 3:15 PM

    @Eddie Hekenui: Still though the Uruguay kicker made an absolute hames of the conversion attempt he was right to pull up his shirt and hide his face. Ireland very lucky cos now even a loss will see us into quarter finals.

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    Mute Eddie Hekenui
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    Apr 5th 2019, 3:32 PM

    @SilexFlint: Yeah that was a shocking miss. Nothing quite like the bounce of a rugby ball to make a lad look stupid. I only saw the highlights so I don’t know why he was kicking and not the lad who took and made the other 3. Yeah nice to be safely into the QF but the draw will be tough.

    As an aside the results make for very strange reading with teams finishing with 26 points 5 times in the four matches so far

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    Mute Eddie Hekenui
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    Apr 5th 2019, 3:32 PM

    @SilexFlint: Yeah that was a shocking miss. Nothing quite like the bounce of a rugby ball to make a lad look stupid. I only saw the highlights so I don’t know why he was kicking and not the lad who took and made the other 3. Yeah nice to be safely into the QF but the draw will be tough.

    As an aside the results make for very strange reading with teams finishing with 26 points 5 times in the four matches so far

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    Mute Frank Scanlon
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    Apr 5th 2019, 6:30 PM

    Pretty poor to be drawing with a country where rugby is almost unheard of

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    Mute Mike
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    Apr 5th 2019, 8:16 PM

    @Frank Scanlon: That’s a bit harsh. They’ve qualified for their 2nd consecutive Rugby World Cup in Japan beating Canada in a playoff. And there’s a strong history of rugby in the country. Alive is a great movie.

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    Mute Frank Scanlon
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    Apr 5th 2019, 11:55 PM

    @Mike: Its a similar size country to Ireland, slightly smaller in population. Ireland has 153,000 registered players and Uruguay has less than 6,000. So I’d say really we should be beating them well. Which is not to belittle Uruguay’s achievements in reaching the World Cup, fair play to them, but in reality soccer is the only show in town over there

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    Mute irishred
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    Apr 6th 2019, 3:32 AM

    Just watched Ireland beat Russia 33-7 Conroy with a hat trick of try’s

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