IT was an emotional weekend for Bahrain-born rugby star Harry McNulty as he guided the Ireland men’s team to a place in the HSBC World Sevens Series for the first time ever with victory over the host nation in the final of the qualification tournament at the annual Hong Kong Sevens.
Following on from a heart-breaking exit at the same event last year, McNulty and his Irish teammates were determined not to let another opportunity slip through the net as they dispatched their hosts 28-7.
The image of McNulty in floods of tears on the field after the final whistle will live long in the memory of many Irish fans and goes some way to reflecting the journey the team has encountered since the National Sevens programme was launched almost as an after-thought in 2015.
McNulty was part of that original squad and has been an ever-present over the course of what has been a challenging four years, and fittingly, it was he who struck for the opening score in the final, running a superb line off Jordan Conroy.
Further tries from Greg O’Shea, Conroy and Terry Kennedy kept Ireland in control as they ran out deserved winners.
Abbreviated
As is so often the case in the abbreviated form of the game, the winners didn’t have it all their own way over the course of the three-day tournament and they were lucky to escape with a draw against lowly Uruguay, having squandered a 26-7 lead in the group stages.
That near-miss seemed to provide a wake-up call to Ireland and they duly responded with successive victories over former World Series members Russia, before outmuscling Germany in the semi-final.
McNulty and his teammates can now look forward to defending their European Sevens title this summer.