Ireland Men’s Sevens Squad Finalised For Olympic Repechage

IRFU Director of Sevens Rugby Anthony Eddy has finalised the Ireland Men’s Sevens squad to compete at the Olympic Repechage tournament in Monaco this weekend. The overall winners will claim the final Men’s Sevens spot at the Rio 2016 Olympics.

Ireland have been drawn in Pool A which is one of the most challenging groups featuring top seeds Samoa, who won the Paris leg of the World Rugby Sevens Series last month, as well as Tonga and Zimbabwe.

The team go into the tournament on the back of a successful weekend at the Rugby Europe Trophy competition in Malmo. They beat hosts Sweden 57-0 in the final to claim top spot in the first leg of the Trophy series.

The 12-man squad, which will be captained by Lansdowne and the Leinster Academy’s Tom Daly, contains fellow Leinster Academy players Adam Byrne, Billy Dardis and Ian Fitzpatrick. Byrne and Dardis are joined in the squad by their UCD club-mates Barry Daly and Harry McNulty.

Munster Academy players Dan Goggin and Alex Wootton are named in the side, as is Josh Rowland, who has been involved with the Sevens panel for a number of weeks.

Buccaneers clubman Shane Layden, Steve Toal-Lennon from St. Mary’s and Clontarf’s powerful winger Mick McGrath, who was the top try scorer in Ulster Bank League Division 1A this season, complete the selection.

Speaking ahead of the squad’s departure for Monaco, Anthony Eddy said: “The side have been developing well over the past number of months and last weekend’s result in Malmo shows that we have a talented group of players in our squad.

“This competition is going to be a big challenge. Obviously every team is there to win and be rewarded with the final position in Rio. We’ve been drawn with Samoa, who are certainly one of the favourites in the competition, also in our pool are Tonga and Zimbabwe and they have a lot of Sevens experience.”

IRELAND MEN’S SEVENS Squad (Global Olympic Sevens Qualifying Tournament, Stade Louis II, Monaco, Saturday, June 18-Sunday, June 19):

Adam Byrne (UCD/Leinster)
Tom Daly (Lansdowne/Leinster) (capt)
Barry Daly (UCD)
Billy Dardis (UCD/Leinster)
Ian Fitzpatrick (Lansdowne/Leinster)
Dan Goggin (Young Munster/Munster)
Shane Layden (Buccaneers)
Mick McGrath (Clontarf)
Harry McNulty (UCD)
Josh Rowland (Ireland Sevens)
Steve Toal-Lennon (St. Mary’s College)
Alex Wootton (Garryowen/Munster)

IRELAND MEN’S SEVENS – POOLS & MATCH SCHEDULE:

Pool A – Samoa, Zimbabwe, Tonga, IRELAND
Pool B – Canada, Germany, Uruguay, Sri Lanka
Pool C – Russia, Chile, Morocco, Tunisia
Pool D – Hong Kong, Spain, Mexico, South Korea

Saturday, June 18 –

Zimbabwe v Ireland, Stade Louis II, 11.22am local time/10.22am Irish time
Samoa v Ireland, Stade Louis II, 2.15pm local time/1.15pm Irish time
Tonga v Ireland, Stade Louis II, 5.30pm local time/4.30pm Irish time
 
Sunday, June 19 –

Play-Offs
 
The games will be streamed live via www.worldrugby.org. Click here for the tournament website and ticket information is available here. Follow @IrishRugby on Twitter for all the updates from Monaco over the weekend.