IRELAND HAVE BEEN elevated to the elite level of Rugby Sevens following a 28-7 win over the hosts at this morning’s Hong Kong Sevens.
It’s effectively a promotion for Ireland: the win means they will be a core team in the World Rugby Sevens Series from 2020, where they will compete against the best teams in the world.
Ireland progressed to today’s final with a 19-10 win against Germany in the early hours of this morning, and flew out of the traps with a third-minute try by Harry McNulty.
They doubled their lead to 14-0 just before the break when Greg O’Shea crossed.
The quicksilver Jordon Conroy then capped his fine tournament with a third try immediately after the restart.
Jordan Conroy scores in the #HK7s qualifier final as @irishrugby qualified for the #HSBC7s 2020 pic.twitter.com/mJOelmSwrV
— World Rugby Sevens (@WorldRugby7s)
Tom McQueen crossed for Hong Kong with 90 seconds to go while Ireland had lost O’Shea to a yellow card, but any possible nerves were immediately assuaged with a riposte try from Terry Kennedy.
Irish captain Billy Dardis reflected on the achievement at full-time.
“We’re just delighted with this. The last 24 months have been a long, hard road. To finally do it…we all just stood on the pitch and couldn’t move. We’re just speechless. It’s class, it’s class.”
Before making the step-up to the world series for 2020, their attention switches to the qualifiers for the Olympic Games later this year.
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