Ireland head coach James Topping was left to bemoan a series of errors as the team’s quest for silverware in the Sevens competition came to an end in aย 19-15 loss to defending champions Fijiย at the Stade de France on Thursday night.
Topping’s troops were seeded to play a side with a perfect Olympic winning streak of 16, which stretches back to the introduction of the sport at Rio 2016, after coming up just short against New Zealand.
There were parallels between both performances, with the wayward boot of Mark Roche evident once more. The scrum-half missed all three of his conversions attempts in the team’s second loss of the day, while a number of handling errors also served to sabotage the podium hopes of a side second in the world rankings.
Topping had little doubt over how the game was decided, telling RTร Sport after the final whistle in Paris: “It’s mistakes, isn’t it? It’s a game of errors, Sevens, as opposed to 15-a-side where there might not be many errors.
“We had a couple of kick-offs and we missed one of them. Ball hits the ground and they pick it up and that’s what Fiji do – they’re very good off scraps.
“We tried to control the ball and keep possession, but if the ball hits the ground or is a bit loose, those guys are all over it and that’s the game they play. They can just pick the ball up and they’re gone, they’ve all got such individual talent.
“It’s tough, we can only do it for so long. We’re going to maybe make three or four mistakes in the game and Fiji have the ability to score off all those mistakes.
“We maybe struggled on that side of it the way we play, but as you can see by the scoreline we still put them under pressure.”
A shot at the medals may have ended, but Ireland must now switch their focus to the fifth to eighth place play-offs, where the United States will be their initial opponents, before a clash against either New Zealand or Argentina.
Topping insists that those games carry merit in their own right, particularly for players set to step away from the sport or retire altogether.
“We have a day off tomorrow, which isn’t great to have. We’d like to get it finished now, but there are a few of our players who will be moving on and retiring from the game, at least for a bit,” he added.
“We want to go and get that fifth place and give those guys who are going two great matches that they can remember because it’s a fantastic stadium and a fantastic occasion to play in.”
Despite his brace of tries against Fiji, Chay Mullins ended up on the losing side and admitted his bitter disappointment had left him almost speechless.
“We’ll have to look back on it as an opportunity missed,” the Bristol-๐๐จ๐ซ๐ง player said. “It’s not every day you get to go to an Olympics and losing in a quarter-final… I’m kind of last for words, to be honest.
“I thought we controlled the game very well in the first half and there were parts of the second half where we controlled it very well again.
“Their tries, that’s just how Fiji play. You’ve got to control it and we didn’t.”
Mullins echoed the sentiments of his head coach in how Ireland would now address Saturday’s double-header, adding: “We did have higher hopes than how we finished here, but we still have two games on Saturday.
“We’ve still got those opportunities and there are lads here who might not be here next year and we just want to finish on a high as a group.”
