Winning in sport is one thing, but doing it at home is another level of excitement so it is fair to assume that the Andorra women’s team will be smiling all week after they triumphed in the Rugby Europe Conference event at the weekend.
The tournament took place in the Ordino Sports Development Centre between Friday and Saturday and Andorra built up some momentum early by topping Pool A with three wins from three.
Croatia did the same in Pool B in the eight-team event, but, in the first semi-final, Montenegro defeated the Croatians 17-12.
Andorra were then pushed all the way in the second semi-final before edging out Luxembourg 17-15.
The final was expected to be a tight one, but that battling last four triumph and the boost of being at home inspired Andorra and they won it 22-0.
A lovely run by Noa Sanchez Llaudet saw her score the first try in the final for Andorra and the same player added the second before half-time.
In the second half, Noelia Pauls Guasch took a quick tap and beat off the retreating defenders to score a converted try and then Anna Fornsubira Melis went in at the corner to seal the win to the delight of the home supporters.
Croatia finished third, Luxembourg fourth, Malta fifth, Lithuania sixth, Bulgaria seventh and Estonia eighth.
In the men’s Rugby Europe Conference 1 event at the same venue, Monaco men were the top dogs in the end.
They did not top their group though, Andorra winning three from three to top Pool A and Austria winning two from three to top Pool B in the eight-team event.
Two sides who finished second in their pools would go on to make the final as Malta got the better of Andorra 10-7 in the first semi-final and then Monaco really hit their stride to see off Austria 22-7 at that stage.
Monaco found another level again in the final to get the better of Malta 24-5.
Enzo Saytour powered over for a converted try in the first half to make it 7-0 and Timoteo Louppe’s five-pointer made it 12-0 at the interval.
In the second half, a quick tap by Ioan Tolosano led to him going over for a converted try to make it 19-0.
A turnover then led to a good counterattack and Hugo Bartnik’s try made it 24-0.
With the full-time hooter gone, Malta scored a converted try via Josh Gatt, but it was Monaco’s day.
Austria took third place, Andorra were fourth, Serbia were fifth, Bulgaria were sixth, Cyprus were seventh and Finland were eighth.
The Men's Conference 2 also took place in Kosovo over Saturday and Sunday, where Slovenia were the eventual winners of the 7 nation competition.
With each team playing 6 matches, Slovenia won 5 and lost 1, finishing on 16 points, however, they were made to work all the way with San Marino, Estonia and Slovakia all winning four matches to all finish on 14 points.
By Gary Heatly
