Ireland Set For Kenya Rematch After Five-Try Win Over Korea

Ireland Men’s Sevens responded impressively to the disappointment of missing out on a place at the Tokyo Olympics quarter-finals by running in five tries against Korea in Tuesday’s first classification match.

Despite securing a 12-7 victory over Kenya in their final Pool C game, Anthony Eddy‘s side agonisingly missed out on a place in the quarter-finals on points difference, but Ireland found the perfect response by booking their place in Wednesday’s ninth place play-off with a big win over Korea.

Early tries from Mark Roche and Jordan Conroy set Ireland on their way against Korea, with another Conroy score and a double from Gavin Mullin handing Eddy’s side a resounding 31-0 victory to set up a rematch with Kenya on Wednesday morning (9.30am Tokyo time/1.30am Irish time).

Speaking after the win over Korea, Roche said: “We said we would go out and attack them. We wanted to hold on to the ball, and that’s what we did for the 10 points that we got and then we just switched off a little, we allowed them play instead of attacking them in defence. We know how to pick ourselves back up for another game and know how important it is to finish strong and get that ninth place.”

Reflecting on a bittersweet day, Mullin added: “It was tough this morning, a tough one to take with that last minute try to put us out. It’s a good group here so we just managed to shake it off in the afternoon. We all just chilled out a bit, relaxed. We’re at the Olympics and we have to go out and enjoy ourselves. It was still pretty sloppy to be honest. We’re still not happy with where we are but we’ll come out tomorrow for our last game and just have a bit of craic.”