It’s Monday, early o’clock, we left the hotel at 03:15 to catch our plane back home. Some slept a few hours, some didn’t bother and came straight to the bus from the… banquet, let’s say. We’re tired but happy – it’s been a good weekend, on and off the pitch.

So yesterday ended up with 1 draw (which we lost), one victory and one loss. It’s an ok day 2! The loss against Finland game obviously was our big frustration of the day, but the victory against Turkey allowed us to get our best result in a EM round since 2005 – Trude was a newly capped player back then, it was my first year the coach, and the national team’s first EM. Some noticed I was getting emotional after the win against Turkey – yes I was, I’m happy and proud. This is a solid performance, and we’ve worked hard for this.

Beyond the ranking, the way we played on day 2 is a source of satisfaction and pride. I’ll have to check the videos, but from the sideline it looked like we played a mature game, with great teamwork. Especially in our defense. We are getting routined enough that we can make small adjustments to the defense system at half-time to adapt to the opposition, like for our last game against Sweden. In this game, we were also more patient in attack and utilized depth much better. It’s good that we can improve in the course of a tournament, and it will be useful in two weeks.

Next is Lisbon, we will be in a pool with the winners of this round, Germany, the host nation Portugal, and Israel. Portugal had a bad day yesterday, finished below us in the ranking, at the 7th place – they struggled physically on day 2, they could not keep up with the tempo set by their opponents in the first two games. It will be a challenging team for us in two weeks.

A lot of people in Norwegian rugby contribute to our results – especially the coaches who work with the players at training every week. Thanks to all of you, we hope you take pride in the team’s results and in the player’s performance.

Looking forward to Lisbon!