The Buccaneers Touch Rugby squad travelled to the National Sport Campus in Dublin for the annual All-Ireland Mixed Open Championship, hosted in memory of the late Liam Carroll, a pioneer of the game.
Buccs’ had a daunting start against tournament favourites Old Wesley Touch. The Dubliners had several Ireland Men’s and Women’s Open in their ranks and their powerful driving game was very difficult for Buccs to handle. Wesley were two up in no time before Ben Porter struck for Buccs’ first try. Wesley were not phased by this however and they proceeded to add four more scores to win 6-1.
Game two pitted Buccs’ against last year’s ITS Champs, Belfast Cooke Warriors. This was a much tighter affair with Buccs’ strong defence keeping Cooke at bay for most of the game. Try as they might though, Buccs’ just could not break down the Northerners resolute defence and eventually Cooke broke through for two late scores to take a 2-0 victory.
Buccs needed a win to kickstart their day it duly arrived in game three. A much-improved attacking performance gave Buccs a 3-2 win against Trinity Touch. Buccs’ dominated this game and should have won more comfortably but the final finish was just missing on a couple of occasions. Aoibhin Tynan put Buccs’ ahead with an impressive diving finish. Trinity caught them on the hop soon after to equalise but Buccs’ put Trinity under sustained pressure for several minutes on their line. Eventually, John Finnan got over from a ‘quickie’ move with Dion Chitanda to put Buccs ahead. Trinity did not lie down and squared up the game at 2-2. There was only seconds left when John Finnan again caught the Trinity defence offside to touch down for the winning score. Buccs were on a roll now and the final round robin game turned out to be the match of the day. Buccs built up a 3-1 lead against Galway’s Racoon West with two scores from Philip Finnan and the try of the day when Ben Porter finished a flowing length of the field move. Racoon fought back to level but Buccs were not finished and Philip Finnan completed his hat-trick when he stepped past the cover to touch down on the last play. With a 4-3 win secured, Buccs progressed to contest the bronze medal match, Racoon West providing the opposition.
Defences were on top in the opening phases of the medal contest and the game was scoreless for a long period before Racoon West got over in the corner. They quickly added a second when George Muller caught the Buccs defence offside from a quickie move. They then effectively sealed the victory with another try in the corner. Buccs did have time to put a gloss on the scoreboard and no better man than Philip Finnan to do it as he dummied the Galway defence and ran the length of the field to score a superb individual effort.
Buccaneers Touch - Paul Gavin, Ben Porter, Nigel So, Dion Chitanda, Maryam Adetayo, Sofia Rizza, Molly Copelin, Katie Rowan, John Finnan, Philip Finnan, Feidhlim Byrne, Anthony Quinn, Aoibhin Tynan, Cian Copelin, Niamh Kelly
