Scottish Mixed Open - Home Nations Champions!

24 Jun 2013 @ 1:00 BST

Scottish National Squads competed at the Home Nations 2013 in Dublin this weekend.

Scotland sent a strong national squad to Dublin, with Mens Open, Womens Open, Mixed Open, Senior Mixed, Womens 27s, Mens 35s and Mens 40s all representing their country. 

We caught up with David Barlett, National Squad Director to hear his round up on what happened in Dublin.

 "I am very proud of the way that all our teams played, particularly given that almost a quarter of the squad were debutants.  A well deserved gold for the Mixed Open, a silver for the Mixed Masters, bronze for the Men's Open, Women's Open and Women's 27 teams, and fourth place for the Men's 35 and Men's 40 all give a good springboard for next year's European Championships in Swansea. I am particularly pleased with the silver achieved by our Mixed Masters team as this is a division we have not entered for a number of years."

Our Mixed Open side were crowned Home Nations Champions this weekend. The team beat Jersey (13-6), Guernsey (14-1), Wales (15-7), Ireland (8-1) and drew against England (5-5), to finish undefeated. 

The Senior Mixed side narrowly missed out to England (6-5), in a very tight final. England went ahead in the first half, before the Scots fought back hard in the Second. The side came very close to scoring late on, which would have seen match carry on to a Drop Off*. but the English defence held strong. 

The Mens Open side missed out on a place in their respective final. The Men lost in a very tight Semi against Wales (3-5), before picking themselves back up to defeat Ireland to finish 3rd overall.

After a short and sharp 3 months training the Womens Open had a steep learning curve and the improvement through the whole tournament showed the squads potential for the future. With the opening match being against a very quick footed Welsh side the girls throw themselves into the tournament. A great win against the newly formed Ireland side day 1 ended in high spirits but with the knowledge that day 2 was a tough line up. Facing the current european champions England WO to start day 2 with a bang. After 2 great scores from the girls they looked to face the England squad again for the semi finals. Although the girls dug deep the strong England side were victorious. But that meant that the girls had a good chance to end the tournament with a win. A repeat performance against the Irish in the 3/4 play off showed off the WO strong defence policy with no scores no conceded. With a 10-0 win showed that the girls have the ability to play some great attacking touch and are ever closer to competing against the champions. This Scotland WO has demonstrated their ability to score, ability to defen and having blooded debutons women's touch in Scotland is on the up. The future is bright for Scotland Womens international touch.

With a number of new caps, new coaching team and new squad setup, the Womens 27s started the tournament a little cautiously with an initial loss to England in the first game. They didn't let spirits stay low for long though and the match against Wales on the Friday saw them stepping up their game and showing the potential future force to be reckoned with. The second half of this match especially showed a strong defence and some well worked attacking moves. The second match against Wales on the Saturday morning was there for the taking and became a hard fought battle with scores coming in thick and fast from both sides, eventually ending with a 5-all draw and resulting in the first international points for a Scottish Women's team against Wales, since 2006. The next game against England showed the huge improvement in both team and individual performance and confidence throughout the tournament putting 3 scores past the English defence, sadly not quite enough to make the final but certainly enough to be proud of. All in all a great base to build on looking forward to the 2014 European Championships. 

Mens 35s came close to beating a strong England side in their opening match of the Home Nations, before being held 9-9 against Ireland. After losing their Semi final to England, they were swept aside by an on-form home side, Ireland.

Mens 40s started with a disappointing 5-1 loss to England, although the score definitely flattered them. The remaining group games were far closer, with Scotland playing much better and leading in both games before losing 6-5 and 4-3 to Wales and Ireland respectively. 
So onto the semi final against the Auld Enemy. A vast improvement in both attack and defence, including a hat-trick from player coach Martin 'Judge Dredd' Macari wasn't quite enough with Scotland losing their 3rd consecutive game by a single score, England eventually running out 4-3 winners. The game also witnessed a unique occurrence, and proved that the M40s would follow their captain (Colin 'Rab C' Reid) anywhere! Rab called for subs and headed at full speed up the left touchline, swiftly followed by all of his teammates. After 3 touches they were already at the halfway line, with 4 of them in the sub box and Rab proudly high 5ing one of the players in the box for subbing so brilliantly.  Two things happened at this point - Judge Dredd entered the pitch from the right touchline going totally apoplectic and the high 5'd player turned to Rab and said 'you're in the wrong sub box mate, this is the England box!' Miraculously we managed to get everyone back to the correct sub box without further mishap (followed by a further round of high 5s for doing such a sterling job), and the legend of the 'Dublin 6' was born! 
Sadly the team put so much effort into the semi final that they ran out of juice in the 3rd/4th play off, shipping a couple of late scores to eventually lose 6-2 to the hosts. However single loss defeats to each team show we weren't far off a podium place

Scotland also sent a strong Referee team across to Dublin. James Matthew and Mike Wallace ranked 1 and 2 for the tournament, refereeing the Mens Open final as a result. A special mention should also go to Peter Faassen de Heer and Sarah Mason who travelled to Dublin as part of the Referee Coaching Panel. Another strong showing from Scotland, which just goes to re-emphasize we are one of the leading European countries in Referee Development.

More Reaction from Dublin to come...

Final Results

Mixed Open - 1st 
Men's Open - 3rd 
Women's Open - 3rd
Senior Mixed - 2nd
Mens 35 - 4th
Mens 40 - 4th
Womens 27 - 3rd

Notes:

Home Nations Tournament - The Home Nations Tournament occurs biannually and currently is a Tiered Federation of International Touch event. International teams in all grades and divisions from England, Guernsey, Ireland, Jersey, Scotland, and Wales compete.

Drop Off - The period of extra time used to determine a winner, after a finals match finishes in a draw. The match restarts with 5 players in each side, dropping to 4 after 2 minutes, and 3-a-side after a further 2 minutes. The winner is the side who scores first, once both teams have had possesion of the ball.