Ireland Finish 10th At First Olympic Games

Ireland Men’s Sevens have finished 10th at their first Olympic Games after Anthony Eddy‘s side slipped to a 22-0 defeat to Kenya in Wednesday’s ninth place play-off at Tokyo Stadium.

It was a historic week for Irish Rugby as the Billy Dardis-led side became the first Irish Rugby team to compete at the Games and although the players themselves will be the first to say they didn’t hit their usual performance standards, there is still a lot to be proud of at the end of a remarkable journey.

Ireland agonisingly missed out on a place in the quarter-finals on points difference having suffered Pool defeats to South Africa and USA on Day 1. Eddy’s side recorded their maiden Olympics victory against Kenya on Tuesday and followed it up with a big win over Korea in the first classification match.

Eddy’s side were unable to finish on a high this morning, as Kenya exacted revenge for their Pool defeat to Ireland.

“I think in Sevens it’s so important to get out of the blocks quickly and get a bit of momentum,” Hugo Lennox said afterwards. “That’s probably something we look to implement in our game and it’s something we didn’t find all tournament, which is really disappointing.”

Bryan Mollen added: “We want to show what we can do, and we didn’t show it here. We’ve got a really strong core group now including the lads back at home, a great squad at training, and it’s just building.”