Day 2 has been a long day, and hasn’t gone how we wished. Our stretch target for the weekend was the 5th place. Having secured our place in the trophy for next year already in Ukraine, and reaching the cup in Hungary, we decided to not let any game go. Romania was a difficult game. We had seen the videos of some of their games, noticed they used rush defense with the backs only, and had worked in the morning on two attacking moves to switch back inside quickly. We had possession, but did not manage to execute the moves – their defense was very aggressive, and difficult to get away from.

We had higher hopes against Czech republic for the second game, a team that we had beaten in Ukraine. We struggled with the defense on the wings, and got early tries against us. A late try by Kathrine was far from sufficient.

The last game was against Finland, a team we also had beaten in Ukraine. We were tired, and Finland had a very effective defense. They score one try, which was enough to win the game. We had a few chances, but never managed to get near their try line.

A day like this is disappointing. Yes, we finished 8th, which is a good result. But we only scored 1 try in 3 games, lost all three games. Not quite the finish we hoped for our season. On the other hand, we did our absolute best that day. There was no easy win against us, the attitude of the players was irreproachable the whole day. It is about doing our best, and we did that. Sometime it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

The overall ranking was published later that evening. It added to the disappointment as we rank #9 for the season, while we had finished 7th and 8th in the two tournaments. Switzerland, Finland and us had the same amount of tournament points, the difference was made on the overall point difference, which is favorable to teams like Switzerland who had played in the challenge, and won, which means more victories than us, despite a lower ranking.

The #10, Israel, is 9 points behind us, illustrating the gap and how safe our #9 place was. Latvia, despite a good tournament, and Austria, who were promoted with us, are relegated to the conference. Next year, Georgia and Turkey will join the Trophy, we can expect tougher competition.