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.

But you know the rule, what happens on tour stays on tour 😉

… that’s because we haven’t had such a good day on the pitch. We lost our second game of the day against Czech Republic, and then the final ranking game against Finland on a frustrating 0-5 score.

We’re resting now while the last ranking games are being played. We need to get over our frustration and disappointment over what happened today, and remember how much we have achieved this season with our little group.

We can be proud! We are proud!

Game against Czech republic

Starting team: Karoline, Ingrid, Tonje, Karin, Ragnhild, Kari, Gina

Try: Kathrine (not converted)

Game against Finland

Starting team: Karoline, Rebekka, Tonje, Karin, Ragnhild, Kari, Gina

Subs: Ellen, Susanne came in.

Interview after the first game today

Interview after our victory against Switzerland yesterday. No time for makeup!

https://mobile.twitter.com/rugby_europe/status/1015527256456925184

We lost our first cup game against Romania. Small details which made a big difference, but we have the feeling that we did our best. It’s a privilege to play games at that level, a well-deserved privilege – it shows us what we need to do to compete against the better teams, it gives us motivation to reach higher.

In this game, we carried the ball a bit too often into the defense, but it also is a sign that we had possession – 90% is in place, we need to improve on tactical awareness, decision making especially under high pressure from the defense. And let’s not forget that Romania is a strong and well routined team.

Starting team: Karoline, Tonje, Ingrid, Karin, Ragnhild, Kari, Gina.

Subs: Rebekka, Susanne, Ellen came in during the game.

Next game at 13:37. We are now completing for the 5th to 8th place.

Today was a great day for our team. With two victories and one defeat, we finished at the second place in our pool, and qualified for the cup (top 8) without having to rely on results in the other pools.

It was a day full of surprises, Finland losing to Israel 0-5, Romania beating Sweden in the final of pool 3, Switzerland failing to qualify for the cup, and we, Norway, beating Switzerland and close to losing against the bottom-seeded team, Latvia. No result can be taken for granted, it’s our lesson of the day. Determination makes a huge difference.

We started the first game determined, focused, made few mistakes, and it paid off. In our last game, maybe we were too confident. Since Ukraine two weeks ago, we had seen Latvia as the team we would probably beat in our group. It was anchored in our mind. It was the game which would open the 3rd place for us and the possibility to qualify for the cup. On the other hand, for Latvia, it was the game to win to save their season and avoid relegation. It is fair to say that they surprised us by the intensity they put in their game, both in attack, resisting tackles, fending off our players, and in defense, putting much pressure on us. We had not imagined that they would manage to score against us, and here they were, leading 3 tries to 2 in the second half. In this difficult situation, our experienced players brought the serenity, kept structuring the game despite the pressure, and it is our subs Åsa and Rebekka, who found the openings in the defense and outran the quickest Latvian players. A real team effort, where everyone plays an important role. It wasn’t the easy win we were expecting, but we still managed to win, despite the mental pressure we experienced during the game. It is an important win, and an important learning.

After our last game, we had diner at the pitch, came back to the hotel, where we relaxed watching the last 1/4 final of the Fifa world cup.

Tomorrow, we play Romania at 10:44. They have a strong team, well organized and very mobile in defense, they don’t often miss tackles. They’re very physical. But we will try hard tomorrow, and remember what we learnt today.

We’ll have to be a bit more careful with the weather tomorrow. Today started as a rainy day, but turned out to be warm and windy. It’s only mid-afternoon that we realized that we all needed to drink much more water – a beginners’ mistake.

I enjoyed being at the stadium the whole day. We actually spend a lot of time, in a small area, with the other teams’ players and staff. We get to know each other, we follow the games closely and discuss the results. The intensity of the games is contrasting with the friendly atmosphere in the stands. Rugby is definitely a nice sport, with great values.

We finish the first day with a difficult victory against Latvia, but still a victory, 28-19.

Latvia scored first, and managed to remain ahead of us for a large part of the game. It is only in the last 3 minutes that we scored the decisive tries and conversion.

Starting team: Karoline, Ingrid, Gina, Susanne, Ragnhild, Kari, Karin.

Subs: Åsa, Rebekka, Katherine came in during the game.

Injured: Tonje

Tries: Karin (assist Kari), Kari (assist Karin), Åsa, Rebekka.

Conversions: Ragnhild (4/4)