Daly & McHenry Relish Sevens Experience

The Cork Con and Greencore Munster Academy pair of Shane Daly and Alex McHenry travelled as part of a 12-man Ireland Men’s Sevens squad to the Octoberfest Sevens last weekend.

Ireland came into the Munich tournament ranked 10th of the twelve competing teams with Daly and McHenry among the new faces on board.

Ireland ended the opening day with a 24-7 win over Chile, bouncing back from two tough defeats to eventual runners-up Fiji (33-14) and champions Australia (17-7).  The knockout rounds on Saturday saw South Africa, who finished third overall, clinically dispatch Ireland 24-0 in the Cup quarter-finals. However, after going down 35-7 to Argentina, the Irish rallied superbly to win their final game 14-12 against France, finishing up 7th overall.

Reflecting on the weekend’s action, Daly commented, “It was an unbelievable experience, especially bouncing back after a tough start against the two finalists.  To play teams like Fiji, Australia and South Africa, they are at another level, it’s a different pace, but we learnt so much from it and that fed into our win against France.  To end on a high like that was the highlight of the weekend.

“We want to build on that now, it was our first competition of the year and we have a lot to work on.  We’re building towards Hong Kong where hopefully we can get the win and compete in the World Series next year.”