Mulhall jets off to Australia for Sevens series

LUCY Mulhall appears to have found the perfect cure the January blues - flying off to Austraila for a bit of international rugby.

Fresh from captaining Ireland to their second Dubai 7’s victory in a row - a tournament in which Mulhall scored four tries and seven conversions - the Rathdrum jetsetter touched down in Australia on Monday for the World Rugby Women’s Sevens World Series.

Mulhall and co. will train at the Sydney Academy of Sport and Recreation in Narrabeen this week before descending on Coogee ahead of the tournament kick-off.

The 24-year old is set for a busy schedule with all three of their Pool C games occurring within six hours on Friday.

Firstly, they take on Russia (10am local time/11pm Irish time), then Canada (1:06pm local time, 2:06am Saturday Irish time) before concluding the group against Fiji (3:50pm local time/4:50am Saturday Irish time).

All matches will take place at 45,500 capacity Allianz Stadium. Should Ireland progress, the playoffs are pencilled in for Saturday, with finals day on Sunday.

Speaking about the tournament, IRFU Director of Women’s and Sevens Rugby, Anthony Eddy, said: “While we finished with a win in the Trophy competition in Dubai, we wanted to be in the quarter-finals on day 2, so that is the aim for Sydney. It’s going to be another tough pool with Canada, Fiji and Russia who were three of the top five teams on the series last season.

“We will have a week-long training camp in Narrabeen where the players will have the chance to recover from the long flights and get acclimatised to the warm weather, while preparing for the three important games on day one. We’ll then continue our preparations as we move to the tournament hotel in the lead into the tournament kicking off.”