Mullins and Ireland victims of poor call as Olympic medal hopes end

Chay Mullins and his Irish team-mates on the Irish Sevens team ended up losing out in their quest for gold at the Paris Olympics last night when they were controversially defeated by reigning champions Fiji.

The pain that goes with defeat will not be helped by the fact that the Fijians, who haven't lost a game since 2016, should have had their match-clinching try, near the end of an engrossing contest, chalked off.

The Irish in the end lost 15-19 - but Mullins - who has Meath family connections - and the Boys in Green were also the victims of a poor call when what appeared to be a knock-on in the lead up to the Fijians' winning try was missed by the match officials.

"Massively disappointing," said Chay Mullins said afterwards.

Mullins scored two tries for Ireland who led 10-7 at the break but it was events in the second-half that conspired to shatter their ambitions.

With five minutes to play the Irish, with the help of a Zac Ward try, led 15-7 and were looking good. However Fiji pulled a try back to leave three between the teams as the contest drew to a close.

Then disaster struck when from the restart the dropping ball fell kindly for Fijian flyer Waisea Nacuqu who had a clear path to the posts.

Reflecting on the incident, former England fly-half Andy Goode took to X, saying: “Ireland done by the ref missing a knock on from the kick off which leads to the winning try for Fiji. Can the TMO not intervene in 7s when it leads to a try? Shocking.”

He added: “Clear knock on from Fiji that leads directly to the winning try over the heartbroken Ireland team. How was this not checked by the TMO in an Olympic quarter-final? If the TMO isn’t allowed to check, it’s even more ludicrous.”

Over the course of the game defensive errors also proved costly for Ireland and failure to take down rampaging Fijians allowed them to score at least two tries.

A couple of tries from Mullins had ensured Ireland secured a quarter-final place in the Rugby Sevens with victory over Japan in Stade de France the previous day.

The Rugby Sevens team were the first of Team Ireland into action and they opened with an impressive 10-5 victory over South Africa with Jordan Conroy and Kennedy crossing for the match-winning tries.

Ireland now have games to determine the rankings at the end of the competition.