Irish Rugby and Sevens

They mentioned on commentary that the last round in Madrid is some sort of play off for the top 8 ranked teams

The game has gone professional. We don't have the set up or money to compete with professional teams.

As Typhoony says above, we need a long term strategy for 15's starting with grass roots and building from there.

We started going rapidly downhill in 2022. At first we were getting destroyed by England and France but then Scotland, Wales and Italy got in on the act.

Build slowly and properly and we'll be competitive again.

It's already in play, lots of girls playing underage rugby now. The future is bright.

Great end to the weekend for the men's beating Fiji to get 5th spot. That should put us joint second in the series. Argentinia running away with it, playing their fourth final in a row later.

The Dupont effect

was offered free tickets to the tournament over the weekend. i live pretty close to the stadium (10 mins walk or so), i knew lots of others going and i didnt really have anything else going on over the weekend (club games are cancelled when the 7s is on).

turned them down because i honestly have almost zero interest in 7s (save for wanting the irish teams to do well).

its great to see the womens team doing well but its a shame that it seems to be at the detriment of 15s

Sevens is just fun, it's great to watch. It's a great day out, a party atmosphere with lots of people from different nations there.

I'm a fifteens guy myself but sevens is great fun.

You missed out on a really enjoyable day.

was not expecting to see those semi finalists when I woke up. France are getting better as each tournament goes on but can definitely beat them if we play well.

Seems like we save our performances for knockout rounds.

Spain also getting stronger but shouldn't fear them or GB if we make final.

Womens team badly missing Lucy and Amy

Women lost in quartrrs to france 31-7 now into 5-8 playoffs

Clutch from TK.

Very impressive that the Men's team will be entering the final standard series in Singapore next month without a single finish outside the top 5. I guess that's why we're second in the rankings and likely to end up there if we keep this high standard up.

Will be a bit of a sickener if we then have a poor final tournament in Madrid. Not sure I like this new format to be honest.

they seem to lift their game for the knock out rounds vs the pools so hopefully that continues into Madrid…and Paris!

Yeah, France played great against us. We'll win one soon hopefully.

No score in the first half of the final, incredible defense on show.

great win against Argentinaand into the semis against GB for the men. We have the beating of GB so hopefully can make the final.

We really seem to raise our game for the knockout stages.

Women into 5th place playoff after losing to Aus in quarters

The fact that we're still in with a chance of winning the league going into the last day is an outstanding achievement.

Looks like it'll be a very competitive grand final too with the field somewhat leveling out as the season progressed.

Good win in extra time even with a biased ref. Never seen penalties given for diving through the contact area to tackle the scrum half or for dragging some one off the field. Then blew up the first half after GB knock on without giving us advantage and didn’t check a very forward pass for the GB try in the second

dragging him over the line was part of the tackle movement. Conroys tackle on scrum half was perfectly legal, ball was out so contact area didn't exist any more, ref thought he was going to knock it on in tackle so was already blowing whistle when it wen backwards. pass for try was a mile forward

Two set piece opportunities to simply score and win the final but we failed at both attempts. It was definitely there for the taking.

tough loss, could have gone either way.

Nz looking like they are starting to find form for GF and Olympics..

Compounded by what seemed like a harsh penalty awarded to NZ directly after.