We are in Budapest this weekend for the first round of this year’s European championship. We left Oslo this morning, landed mid-day in Hungary, got joined by Elain and Ellen who were flying from UK and Portugal.

We had a late lunch on the terrasse of a nice restaurant near the hotel, and went to the stadium for a 1.5 hrs training session. We practiced passing, back-line moves, kick-offs, and finished with a game run. The pitch is nice, but the weather is quite hot, especially compared to Norway in the last few weeks. The atmosphere was relaxed but studious.

We have three new players this years, Silje Elin Skrede (Sagene IL), Miriam Sabøe (BSI) and Ingrid Sæther Houge (NTNUI). Hence the rookie’s hats on the pictures. Our captain is Karoline, Ingrid Ringsrud will be seconding her as vice-captain.

We had diner at the hotel and not much on our plan for the evening. As a nice coincidence, the women’s football world cup is kicking off today, so here I am cheering for France tonight (looking good so far)… and for Norway tomorrow.

And then it was almost over. We went for lunch, had a short video session, a break and a light training session.

We played 8 games, won 3, lost 5. But we had our own plan and objectives: give exposure to all the players, try different team compositions, different game plans. The players also were asked to try, find the limits wrt referee decisions, which they did well. This weekend was quality time for building our squad.

We said thanks and goodbye to the teams, the referees, Bam and Mikko who organized the weekend. There were talks about organizing a nordic nations tournament in the autumn – the spirit this weekend was great, it would be awesome to continue our collaboration.

Last game of the weekend against Denmark, which we lost 22-5.

Norway 1 lost to Finland 1 0-34

Norway 2 won against Finland 2 17-5

We finished the day with diner, a social gathering with all the teams, a sauna, a dive in the lake (really), a meeting with the managers and coaches, and of course supper.

Busy but relaxing at the same time!

It’s been a nice day, we’ve played 5 games, won and lost – it’s the opposition we need to progress.

The last game of the day gave a nice finish on the rugby field. The team showed determination, energy and creativity, well illustrated by Ingrid’s beautiful try towards the end of the match, see the clip below. Norway 1 had a difficult start today, but finished on a high note, in a game which we will be happy to watch again!

Tomorrow, we’ll play 4 to 5 games, before heading back to Norway.

At the meeting with the managers and the coaches, we also discussed future collaboration. There is much to gain in working together, both for the national teams and for the development of women’s rugby in our countries. I hope we will look at today’s pictures one day, and say ‘this is where it started’!

And finally a victory for Norway 1, 27-22, against Finland 1.

Tries by Karin 2, Ingrid 2, Rebekka

Conversion by Ingrid

Norway 2 was playing against Finland 2. This time it’s Finland 2 who took the victory, 10-5.

Try by Silje Elin

That’s the end of the day for this team, some of the girls will play with Norway 1 a bit later.

We are staying at Eerikkilä sport resort, 1hr from Helsinki. It’s a perfect place for spending a rugby weekend, it has all the facilities we need, great accommodation, good (and plenty of) food.

This afternoon we used the cinema room for a one and a half hour video session. We watched the games from the first team, against Denmark and Finland 1. It was a good session, with an engaged squad, bringing different perspectives, discussing options, how we can improve, what we are good at etc.

It’s always a bit risky to watch games in plenum – necessarily, we will zoom in on some action, we will look again and again at a sequence where we see improvement potential. But the spirit was great, the discussion very positive and constructive. We noted down a few things we need to focus on, we the coaches also received some good feedback. It’s one of the good things of having a training camp like this. We’re not under pressure to win all games, we don’t need to turn the page immediately and focus on the next game. We can look back and learn.

We will play two more games a bit later, one for each team. We will try different compositions, different game plans.

It’s freezing cold outside and windy, lunch in a warm canteen is very welcome. After lunch, video session, then 2 to 3 games again.