Ireland Men To Play Belgium In Olympic Qualifier’s Last-Eight

Ireland fell behind to a Nikolai Klewinghaus try, but Jack Kelly pulled back five points before two second half scores from Jordan Conroy and Andrew Smith made it three pool wins out of three.

Belgium, who were the second best third place finishers, will provide the quarter-final opposition for James Topping’s men at 7.14pm local time/6.14pm Irish time this evening. You can watch live on the RTÉ Player and here on rugbyeurope.tv.

The winners of Ireland v Belgium will play either Georgia, whom Ireland defeated to win the Algarve Sevens title recently, or Portugal at the semi-final stage. The other unbeaten pool winners, Great Britain and Spain, will meet Germany and Italy respectively in the last-eight.

The team that wins the European Games competition in Poland will qualify for next summer’s Olympics in Paris, while the second and third place finishers advance to the global repechage event for a final shot at qualification.

It was a slower start from Ireland on day two at the Henryk Reyman Stadium. Well organised in defence, Germany advanced thanks to a couple of penalties before Klewinghaus twice used a strong hand-off to score out wide.

Kelly hit back in the fifth minute, charging away down the left wing after space had initially opened up for captain Harry McNulty who linked well with Smith to set the former Ireland Under-20 skipper free.

The Germans held onto the lead with Mark Roche’s conversion bouncing away off the left hand post. Liam McNamara also had to react smartly to make a try-saving tackle on Bastian van der Bosch.

Conroy gave Ireland the ideal start to the second half as, despite having very little space to work with, he slipped past two attempted tackles to score his third try of the tournament. The newly-introduced Billy Dardis converted.

Terry Kennedy, who had also been sprung from the bench, probed with one of his trademark runs, gliding back out to the left wing in the 10th minute. He combined with Dardis to send Smith cutting in past two defenders for a key seven-pointer.

Germany did gain ground and threaten to respond, but Kelly’s impact at the breakdown led to a clearing penalty. Another decision went Ireland’s way past halfway, and Dardis kicked the ball dead with time up on the clock.

Giving his reaction afterwards, Dardis said: “It was a good solid win. The first half was a bit shaky. We knew they were going to come at us with a few trick plays and stuff like that, but it was nice to get a good solid win like that in the end.

“Those kind of games are always going to be tense. First half, teams are feeling each other out. We made a few mistakes, but did well to keep them out just before half-time.

“It gave us a bit of momentum and then we played well in the second half. It’s the last group game and we’ve got to move on now.

“The end goal is obviously to win that final on Tuesday night, but each game is very important from here on out. It’s knockout, you have to be right on it, very accurate and clinical. It’ll be a big one.”

All of the European Games matches are broadcast live on rugbyeurope.tv via the Rugby Europe website – click here for more.