Ireland Women face Olympic shoot-out with Fiji on Sunday morning

Ireland Women face an early Sunday morning showdown with Fiji in Toulouse for a place in the Sevens competition in next summer’s Olympic Games.

Ireland (64 points), Fiji (62) and Great Britain (60) are the teams vying for that last automatic Olympic spot, so a win for Allan Temple-Jones’s side over Fiji in the fifth-place semi-final (kick-off 9am local time/8am Irish time) would book their ticket to Paris.

Britain lost their Saturday evening quarter-final to hosts France at the HSBC France Sevens in Toulouse, going down 28-10, so the Ireland-Fiji match is now a straight shoot-out for that Olympic berth. The losers will have other chances to qualify via the regional and global repechage routes.

New Zealand, the World Series champions for 2023, Australia, the USA and France, as the host nation, have booked their Olympic tickets.

The Counter Ruck: the rugby newsletter from The Irish Times

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Amee-Leigh Murphy Crowe bagged a brace of tries in Ireland’s 36-7 win over Brazil on Saturday morning, but a shock victory for France over Australia meant Ireland missed out on being Pool B’s runners-up, progressing instead as the best third-place finishers across the pools.

Presented with a rematch with the Australians, they lost out 17-7 in the last eight, their only try coming late on when Eve Higgins barged over after tapping a close-in penalty.

Murphy Crowe’s in-and-out run saw her blaze clear of newcomer Yasmin Soares for Ireland’s first try against Brazil, with the quality of passes from captain Lucy Mulhall and Megan Burns releasing her inside the opening minute.

There were limited scoring chances during a stop-start first half, but Ireland’s territorial advantage eventually led to two late scores and a 19-0 half-time lead.

Murphy forced a knock-on and Emily Lane sniped from the resulting scrum, her nicely-delayed pass setting up Mulhall to step off her left and crash over, five metres in from the touchline.

Ireland then took advantage of Luiza Campos’s yellow card, Murphy Crowe and Lane leading a counter-ruck that gained a penalty and Mulhall floated a pass wide for Higgins to run in try number three.

Higgins flicked a tremendous offload out the back door for Murphy Crowe to make it 26-0 in the ninth minute, while Béibhinn Parsons opened her Toulouse account soon after as Ireland went quickly from a Higgins-won turnover penalty.

The heavily-involved Stacey Flood plucked down the restart and sped off for the try line, handing off Campos to extend the lead to 36 points. The only blip was Gabriela Lima’s late breakaway effort to get Brazil on the board.

With France’s late surge seeing them overcome Australia, the three leading teams in Pool B finished level on seven points each. Scoring difference separated them, with Ireland narrowly squeezed out by France for the runners-up spot.

That meant that Mulhall and her team-mates, as the best third-place finishers, were pitted against Australia at the quarter-final stage. They fell behind to a first-minute try from teenager Teagan Levi, who burst clear from Alysia Lefau-Fakaosilea’s offload.

A big scrum penalty launched Ireland forward, but Burns’s attempt to bring Murphy Crowe in off her wing failed to work out. Knock-ons thwarted both sides’ progress in the lead up to half-time.

Good work from the ever-influential Mulhall almost saw her get away from Levi, and the inrushing Flood knocked on with some space opening up in front of her.

Australia’s push for a late first-half try was denied, Murphy Crowe coming up with a brilliant ball-dislodging tackle on Maddison Levi, but two Irish knock-ons proved costly early on the resumption.

Levi bumped Mulhall out of her way before sending Biene Terita in from the right wing to make it 12-0. The half-time replacement followed up with a decisive second try in the 11th minute, having the gas to score from her own 22.

It was a 10-point deficit in the end for Ireland who finished the game strongly. Their passing and angles of running improved late on, Higgins using her own quickly-taken penalty to muscle over from close range.