On the 12th April we travelled to Danville, Virginia to represent UCD Michael Smurfit Business School as the only Irish University competing in the MBA Rugby World Cup. A group of 44 MBA and MSc. students left Dublin, having trained every Friday night since September, the men’s team playing contact rugby and the women playing touch rugby.
Great team work, coaching, organisation and planning, brought us together as two competitive teams and one complete unit proud to represent Smurfit against the best universities in the world. Even better when you can bring home the silverware; the men’s team brought home the world cup, while the women’s team came third.
The women’s team of nine, were tasked in September with learning touch rugby from scratch. Combined with the team’s determination and motivation and our coach Dave Condon’s endless patience and encouragement we found ourselves in Danville.
Training on Friday afternoon in Danville was our first taste of the heat and sunshine; it was going to be a hot weekend ahead. Friday night we got our briefing; three games on Saturday and four games on Sunday through a round robin competition; each game lasting 20 minutes….…or so we thought. Our first win on Saturday morning settled the nerves and helped to solidify team work. The second game was tougher, ending in a draw. To our dismay, we realised that no game could end in a draw, so we went to extra time with a twist – every second play each team dropped a player, until only three players remained per team and a winning try was scored. After 20 gruelling additional minutes, our determination and team commitment shone through when we scored the winning try to take all the points from our second game. Our third game of the day was the toughest yet. We were up against the largest squad in the competition and unfortunately, injuries and fatigue took their toll. Although we fought hard, we lost our first match of the competition.
As day two began, our bodies were sore and with 50% of the team carrying injuries we dug deep to win our first match. We were given a walkover for our second game, which gave us some well-earned time to rest up before two games back to back to finish the tournament. Our third game was the toughest of the day, especially with exhaustion and injuries starting to take over. It was our second loss of the tournament. The last game was beginning to feel like mission impossible – we were down to three fully fit players and six walking wounded. At this point it was our team spirit that carried us through to motivate each other to finish the last game on a high. After surviving 20 minutes with virtually no substitutions, the game ended in a draw. This meant we went into our second drop off in as many days. Team work was key and I have never seen commitment and resilience like it; everyone was exhausted and carrying injuries, but we wanted to end with a win. Sheer willpower, fitness and relentless determination brought us the winning try to end the match after 25 additional minutes and absolutely nothing left in the tank.
The women’s competition was fierce and was fought hard; thanks to Wharton, Ivey, Yale/Cornell, Columbia and congratulations to London Business School on their win.
Overall an absolutely brilliant experience that we will never forget, and we couldn’t ask for a better group of people to share it with.
Lyn Markey EMBA Mid-Week and Lucy Mac Auley MBA Full Time 2017/18