The Five Nations - Men's Sabre Team & Other Happenings

I got a lift from my dad out to DCU early on a Saturday morning. This is the biggest day of the Irish Fencing calendar and for some it would be the highest level they would compete. As an event it's something I've questioned it's roll in the progression of Irish fencing but it was never something I was going to give less than 100% for.

It was great for me to see my sabre team - Stephen, Hugh and Dan. We'd all started around the same time and all good friends at this stage, so there was a fantastic atmosphere on the team. Everyone knew they had a part to play and was determined to give their all. I had a suspicion it wasn't going to be easy and at best we would scrape a win on the back of an excellent performance with everything going right but we'd see...

When I walked into the sports hall it seemed to be trapped in twilight with none of the main lights on. This would delay the start of precedings and on top of that our first match wasn't till the second or third round so I probably could have afforded to stay out later with my class or sleep in the next morning.

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Here's the bit on the actual performance of the Men's Sabre team...

Our first match was against England. Stephen tore out of the blocks against Chris Farren and picked up a good result against the whiley Jaffa who'd been around the top of the rankings longer than any of his team-mates. I was up next against Alex O'Connell but I was off to a much slower start. If my attacks fell short I needed to be immediately in his face so he couldn't build up his momentum. His bread and butter is a long marching attack. Unfortunately I didn't do this and he was able to claw the score back in England favour. From that point onwards England pulled away. While we all put in good performances against without-a-doubt the strongest team in the tournament the final result was never really in question.

The second match was against Northern Ireland. They'd managed to bring a team of 5 or 6, I think just for the sake of going on the piss but they were all decent fencers. I managed a win in my first match against Nicholls. Hugh Tobin, according to the RTE report however, "Couldn't keep up the pace" and lost us the match. Which provided us with the greatest joke ever but it was only that Hugh and Dan both fenced excellently for the match. Their group of fencers were just slightly stronger than our own and they ran out winners. I had the last laugh however with my shout of "Three cheers for Norn Iron" - taped for posterity on RTE cameras.

In our third match we faced Scottland. Aside from Harry Moncrieff they lacked outstanding international quality but were all solid and/or awkward fencers. Stephen again put in a strong performance on his 5 Nations Debut. He was really psyched-up on the day, screaming at every point from the very beginning, even just getting warmed up, even just travelling there on the bus. We kept it reasonably close in the match but Scotland were always just a tiny bit ahead. In the final match I had to catch up 15 points to the 5 Harry need to end the match. I was pretty please with my fencing in the match but couldn't managed more than 5-5 in the bout. Three cheers for Scotland and all that crap.

In our final match we were to face Wales. We'd been fencing strongly all day and I knew this was our best chance of a win. Unfortunately, in the end, the key factor was to be the terrible refereeing. We kept the match very tight and the lead pendulumed back and forward between the teams by a matter of 2 or 3 points throughout. As the match went on however, the calls of the referee got more and more eratic. His seperation of points in the centre of the piste made no sense and were completely inconsistant. Sometimes they seemed to be based on who cheered louder. Other times I could not see where the calls were coming from. At one point when one of the other fencers was fencing, on a point I was certain wasn't ours I cheered for it as loudly as possible - and the point went our way; ridiculous! The Welsh team were far more familiar with his absurd calls and played him better than ourselves. Bemused I would glance across at Juppy on the Welsh side after a terrible decision and we would both shrugg our shoulders and laugh.

Myself and Dan in particular both were frustrated repeated by his downright shoddy presiding. I left the piste shouting "Quelle Cont" except in English at one stage. Philip the team captain suggested that I should apologise to the ref for my language but when I did he didn't know what I was talking about (deaf in one ear). He'd actually been annoyed by something Dan said under his breath on the piste. So now he thought two of us were swearing at him rather than one. Last time I follow someone elses advice during a match like that.

As the final bout approach Wales had managed to build a three point lead. Against Alistar Juppy, their strongest fencer, I knew I'd have to be well psyched up. I knew I needed myself in a slightly aggitated state to get the adrenaline flowing. Unfortunately though, aided by some poor refereeing decisions I couldn't claw back the difference and Wales won out.

As I left the piste thoroughly pissed off with the ref. Another team captain came to me and said "That was your fault, you lost your cool!" I was stunned, if I hadn't been so stunned my first reaction would have been to take a swing at them! I managed to answer reasonably calmly "No, I needed to have myself worked up to get back the difference... I was in control and I was intentionally putting myself there." That was definitely the low-light of the day, wanted to knock-out another captain!
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I was really proud of the team and really happy with how they fenced. Stephen, as Dan had done the year before, on his five-nations debut, free from expectations, had fenced brilliantly. Dan himself also put in a very solid performance after a season that had been wracked with injury. Hugh when called upon put in some really top performances and was a massive adition to the team.

Myself, on reflextion, was reasonably pleased with how I fenced. Last year, I wasn't happy with how I handled the stress of having to anchor the team on what was my own debut in the competition. This year, I felt I put in some good performances and was pleased that I never let my team down. I also tried to take on a definite leader roll in the team as captain and tried my best to coach my fencers between and during matches.

I think, more than anything we realised on the team that there was definite potential the team as a unit to improve and work together over the next year. In the weeks that followed we were fairly boyant about the potential for the team to improve its results and hope to work together over the next year in going to competitions and training to improve our results for the next year.

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There was a lot of other things going on around the tournament as well. Kerry Hardie the author who I met in the Centre Culturel Irlandais came down to say hello and to watch the fencing. Her book is well underway at this stage.

As well as this OB Sports were filming an extract for their programme. They focused on the Women's Sabre with Siobhán and the Men's Sabre team, I suppose because I'm training full-time abroad. They filmed quite a lot of the Men's Sabre matches, getting right into my face as I was preparing to go on the piste. I tried to ignore it as best I could. They also did an interview with me, during which I went on a 20 minute tirade about what a bastard Hugh was (that is a joke), but they didn't show that.

The piece can be viewed on the RTE website here