The Ireland Women's Sevens team, sponsored by TritonLake, completed a four-match winning run to finish top of Pool A and advance to the semi-finals at the Krakow 7s.
Aiden McNulty's side defeated hosts Poland 21-10, the champions in Lisbon last week, and Germany 38-7 to move within two games of winning the final leg of the Rugby Europe Sevens Championship.
Standing between them and a place in the final are Spain, the two teams meeting in the last-four tomorrow at 10.44am local time/9.44am Irish time. Poland and Scotland are the other semi-finalists.
Amee-Leigh Murphy Crowe finished the pool stages with six tries to her name, followed by Eve Higgins and Anna McGann (three each). Megan Burns, Vicky Elmes Kinlan, Stacey Flood and captain Lucy Mulhall have scored two each.
After a nervy start from both teams, Ireland broke the deadlock against Poland in the third minute. Burns brilliantly spun away from Karolina Jaszczyszyn to scamper clear and score from 60 metres out.
Mulhall's conversion was quickly followed by a second Irish try midway through the opening half. They worked scrum possession wide to Murphy Crowe who sidestepped around a defender to make it 14-0.
Erin King led an aggressive Irish defence that pinned Poland back, the pressure lead to Higgins going close before Flood struck from the resulting ruck, muscling over for Mulhall to convert from a tight angle.
The final seven minutes were scoreless, with defences on top and the slippery ball leading to handling errors. Poland had the only scoring chance, but the bounce of the ball went against the inrushing Natalia Pamieta.
Enya Breen was unleashed through the middle by Burns inside the opening minutes of the Germany game, and the Cork youngster spun a pass wide for Elmes Kinlan to finish off behind the posts.
Errors from both sides made for a stop-start first half, but Ireland's accuracy returned when Burns drew in a defender and released Elmes Kinlan to sprint over from inside her own half.
Breen's conversion might have been the final scoring act before the interval, but Gesine Adler ran in an impressive individual try to leave Germany only 14-7 behind.
Higgins marked her introduction off the bench by accelerating through a gap and handing off Clara Tauschek for Ireland's third try, which went unconverted.
Lucinda Kinghan linked neatly with Breen in midfield and took a return pass to score in the 10th minute. Fellow Ulster native Claire Boles gobbled up Mulhall's grubber-kicked restart and soon blocked down a German kick.
Germany were caught offside from another kick, the possession eventually leading to a Mulhall seven-pointer from her own in-and-out run.
In the dying seconds, Flood fed Murphy Crowe off a scrum and the Tipperary native showed her finishing skills to make it a 31-point winning margin in the end.
You can follow all the action live on Rugby Europe TV – click here for details.
Ireland Women Set Up Spain Semi-Final In Krakow
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2nd July 2022
