In case you haven’t been following the two teams at the European C league in Holland:

The men ranked top of the Round Robin and played Belgium in the Gold Medal game. The Belgians managed to reverse the result from the Round robin and finished Gold Medalists.

This put our boys into the Silver/Bronze medal game against Israel today. The Israelis went into an early 4-0 lead and although the guys fought hard, they couldn’t overcome the deficit and went down to Bronze medal position. While they must be congratulated on winning the Bronze, the ultimate goal was to qualify for the European Championships B league and they will be hugely disappointed not to have done that as there were only two places available which went to Belgium and Israel.

They must be congratulated though on their performance all week, only to come up short of their goal.

Photo by Willy Moerland

The ladies team playing together for the first time, had a difficult start but once they got into their stride, they turned in some gutsy performances particularly giving Spain (one of the finalists) a hell of a fright and losing agonisingly to Slovenia to measures in the 10th and extra ends. They beat Romania in their last game which ended their campaign with a win.
They must be commended for performing as they did given their huge inexperience at this level (Hazel excepted) and lack of familiarity with one another.

The ICA would like to thank both teams for their performances this week and their commitment to promoting Irish Curling on the international stage.