DRF Tournament #3: Irish Women Finish With Bronze
Under strong winds and consistent drizzle, Berlin Irish were able to finish off the final tournament of the year in a respectable 3rd place
The day started against a capable BSV team who had caused Irish real problems in their last encounter. Two first half tries from Leo and Hirschberg (both playing out of position due to an ongoing wave of sickness in the squad) left the team sitting 12–0 ahead at half-time. It could have been three tries, with Sekulovic immensely unlucky to have a try disallowed due to an earlier infringement after careening through the BSV defence like a knife through butter. Irish kept solid defensive pressure on the opposition and moved the ball well despite the greasy conditions. A further two tries saw Leo ring up a hat-trick as an ersatz winger, and Ziffels put the finishing touches with a lovely conversion from out wide to run out 24–0 winners against the Wilmersdorfer.
The constant drizzle intensified as the team ran out against the Berlin Bruisers into a steady downpour, and so did the physicality. Bruisers lived up to their name and dominated the contact area and set piece. The Bruisers’ game plan suited the conditions and quickly began to take its toll, as the scoreboard racked up in their favour. Shaw came closest in the first half with a surging run up the right wing, but was bundled into touch before she could get an offload away. A full sweep of substitutions and a change of tactics brought a slight improvement in the second half. But the incredible 31–0 lead of the Bruisers wasn’t to be challenged, and when even a last minute consolation score was chalked off because of a forward pass, it was clear that it just wasn’t meant to be.
This put Irish through as 4th seeds into the semi-finals, where they took on the touring Tel-Aviv Amazons, who were playing as a guest team in the championship and had early knocked over hosts RK03 in the group stages. The Amazons showed why they are their countries reigning champions and, despite the awful weather conditions, were better able to put attacking phases together than the Irish. The green defensive wall mostly held, though, and a single score was the difference at half-time. The second half rolled back and forth, but the team, short on traditional ball carriers, struggled again with the physicality of the opposition and their excellent defensive structure. Leo again popped up with the only score, dancing past a weak tackle to score after intelligent work by Gebhard to play her through. Nonetheless, the quality of the opposition showed, and they pulled away to a 22–7 result for Tel Aviv.
This left Irish in the bronze medal match against none other than the Bruisers once again, in a rematch of their earlier meeting. This time, perhaps with the lessons of the last two matches to build on, the team were able to really get into an attacking groove which their opponents could not deal with. Moving the ball from sideline to sideline, they spread the opposition defence, who without a sweeper couldn’t cope with any line breaks and conceded repeatedly. First Shaw broke away down the wing, leaving a chasing player sprawling, then Leo grabbed two more on the other wing to take a 15–0 half-time score. On the second half, as the opposition began to work harder on their drift defence, space opened in the middle for captain Thron first, who capped off a beautiful strike move. And then another time for Leo, who dotted down again for incredibly her 2nd hat-trick of the day to leave a 27–0 score at full time.
Not only were the team able to finish a good 3rd, securing qualification to the North German “A Division” for 2024, more importantly, they found the strength and spirit to recover from some disappointing results. Also, two players were able to make their debuts and thus continue building a real squad depth, which will serve the club well in their hunt to reach the German Championship Finals next summer.
Squad
Hirschberg
Vahldick
Shaw
Ziffels
Dankou
Marchand
Leo
Thron
Sadeq *
O’Connor *
Gebhard
Sekulovic
* = Debut