Women - Day 5

The final day of games for us! We drew Finland for our bottom half semi-final and we knew both teams would be raring for it. We expected them to come out stronger than the first day but we had confidence in ourselves too. The first half was once again taken by them by a one point lead. We were trailing with them for the rest of the game right up until sudden death when we played probably our most intense point of the tournament. Neither team was going down without a fight; the D play was sensational. We thought we scored with a hammer from Pugh to Tracey who prematurely spiked it thinking the game was won but no - a pick was called! It looked like we were going to take the game twice more but nerves made for slippery hands and it wasn't until I zinged a flick down the line that Claire snatched from under the Finns' noses that we were able to finally accept the victory as ours. What a fantastic match. Everyone was completely up for it and stepped up their games, despite tiredness. Unfortunately we lost Olly early in the game to a hamstring injury and I think losing our MVP of the first game was a big reason behind the tighter scoreline. However, that is not to take anything away from Finland who were a much better team the second time around and a lot harder to turn. Their disc skills were much more impressive and therefore we really had to put it all in on defence.

MVP: Fiona Mernagh
Score: 15-14

So for the 5th/6th playoff we were drawn up against Colombia. We heard from the Germans that they were tired but so were we, especially having had a much closer first game that day than them. Both teams wanted to change the game to a later time in the evening but were told this wasn't possible so it was a 3 o'clock game again for us.

We came out against the Colombians but unfortunately weren't beating them for pace or skill. We punched in a few scores. I think the first one was my huck and D that, since Alan had asked us to do it, Emma and Megan were both expecting and legged it to the endzone for, Megan actually managing to catch it (helped by Emma's pushing).

At half time we were down 9-3 so we weren't feeling overly enthused or energetic about the game. Thank God for music! With Louise's i-pod speakers we let our hair down and rocked the marquee, dancing to such notorious classics as 'No Limits' and other pump up tunes like the Pretenders. We also had our own rendition of Living on a Prayer, led beautifully by our conductor Mr Doyle. With this kind of blood pumping action it was time to attack with a zone! Celine, Helen, Megan, Caoimhe - absolute heroes in the cup! They terrified the Colombians with their aggressive counting and energiser bunny movements. They really put the fire into this game and allowed us to have a much more impressive scoreline of 5 - 8 in the second half. One of those scores was a beautiful one-two between Emma and Celine outside the endzone. We were able to finish feeling very proud of ourselves and I know I was smiling at the end of it.

MVP: Celine Campbell (thanks in part to Courtney's 'constructive criticism')
Score: 8 - 17