Irish Open 2011
This year, UCD finally got to hold the Irish Open with the men’s epee satellite attached after last year’s epic snow closed down the UCD campus and the competition moved to RDS Library. While the epee saw a varied list of nationalities entered with fencers seeking points to help toward their Olympic qualifications, sabreurs would be content with mostly Irish based fencers. The main addition was the US Metro fencers that Mc Namee brought with him from Paris, among this group, Gilmas, who last year beat Mc Namee in the final.
The poules were always going to throw a bit of a mix up with the US Metro fencers all too low in the rankings to take any of the top two seeds in any of the poules. There were four poules and there was one fencer in each who won all four matches to grab the top four seeds for the DE’s. McHugh took top seed, helped by having an extra match to boost his points difference. While Mc Namee and Magee took third and fourth seeds respectively, each winning their poules outright, there was a surprise in poule two.
Concannon and Connolly must have cursed their luck to have Gilmas dropped into their poule and the match between the two took on extra importance as a result. When the top seeds did meet, Connolly took the lead over Concannon with a couple remises and closed out the match, 5-3, with a pair parry quinte-ripostes.
A few matches later, Concannon and Gilmas faced off and while Concannon had upped his game with more active footwork, Gilmas’ class showed through as he glided forward in attack winning the match 5-4. One of the final matches of the poule would decide the poule winner as Connolly and Gilmas stepped onto the piste. Connolly pulled out some timely counter-attacks to steal the win leaving Gilmas with a surprised defeat as Connolly went to take second seed for the DE’s.
The seedings were overturned only once in the L32 in a round where only the top three had got byes as Francois-Dainville (17th, FRA) knocked out Boggia (16th, NED). The L16 churned up a few more interesting matches, in the top half of the tableau Cadoret (9th, FRA) put out Nicholl (8th) in a close bout while McHugh, Gilmas and Magee all progressed to the quarter finals. On the bottom half of the tableau Concannon (11th) knocked out Tobin (6th) as Mc Namee, Hayes and Connolly also progressed.
In the quarter finals Cadoret met McHugh and while the match was close in the beginning, it began to get away from McHugh as the match wore on and he grew frustrated with the calls going against his failed attacks. Cadoret would then meet his club mate Gilmas in the semi final as Gilmas beat the young and upcoming Magee.
Elsewhere, in the loudest match of the day, Concannon met Mc Namee in a highly strung contest as the Irish number one and two went head to head. While the early points went to Concannon in the centre, Mc Namee clawed himself back into the match with some composed attacks at the end of great acceleration. In the second half of the match as Mc Namee began to dominate the centre of the piste, Concannon forced the match out to the ends of the piste where his counter attacks came into play. At 13-13, Concannon landed a hit only to have the spool disconnect from the ground wires. He managed to regain his composure, however, and win the last two points to win 15-13. He would meet Connolly in the semi final after he had knocked out Hayes in the last quarter final.
Neither of the semi finals could match the drama of the preceding quarter final. Concannon’s footwork had improved throughout the day since the fencing Connolly in the poules and as a result, Connolly struggled to land the same long attacks. As Concannon pulled through 15-6, Gilmas knocked out his fellow countryman Cadoret in the other semi, 15-7.
Once again, Gilmas and Concannon were to meet and Concannon started the match stronger with some clean attacks and a couple of counter attacks that stopped Gilmas’ fluid attacks. Gilmas went into the break trailing 8-6 but advice from his teammates seemed to pay off. He came out of the break with new verve and his classy footwork truly came to the fore as he glided forward to land attack after attack. Concannon struggled to read the difference between failed and compound attacks as his counter attacks failed to win any points from the president. While Concannon grew frustrated, point by point Gilmas pulled away and finished off with sustained composure to a 15-12 with a commanding second half to the match.
While Concannon continued his good run on home soil, perhaps the next most notable performance of the day was Connolly who has now seeded second in two competitions in a row (Derry last month too) as he seems to dominate five point matches with a very relaxed style of fencing that hasn’t yet work for him in the latter stages of a competition.
It was, however, the French Gilmas who took the plaudits once more as he collected the trophy for a second year running, something not achieved that often in men’s sabre in Ireland. The big quesiton now is, will he come back next year to make it three from three?
Canco
Click here for full results.
Intermediates 2011
The season may have begun for some over in Bristol or Hamlet but for most Irish sabreurs, the season only kicked off last weekend with the Intermediates in UCD. The full results have not yet been made available but here’s what I’ve got from memory, feel free to leave comments if I’ve made any mistakes…
The entry list was comprised of all sorts as foilists and epeeists entered the fray. I’m sure the sabreurs were delighted to see the entry reach the 17 mark for the extra points made available. Two of the additional non-sabreurs, Keith Halloran and Dong Li, were going for the All-Weapons trophy. Halloran had an eight place lead but nothing could be taken forgranted as sabre was foreign to both of them.
From the start of the day the last four would have been predicted by many as McHugh, McCabe, Gonzalez and David turned up, each looking for their first ranked trophy. There was always a chance for upset though as there were only three poules which meant that some of the top four seeds would have to face each other before the knock-outs.
In the first round of poules, the two top seeds to meet were McCabe and Gonzalez (winner?). Elsewhere, McHugh and Davis topped each of their poules respectively. While Davis had an extra match over McHugh to potentially beat him to top seed on indicators, it was McHugh’s devastating form that saw him take the top seed after the first round of poules. In his four matches, he dropped a single hit, coming with a lapse in concentration as he was 4-0 up in his final bout. Davis did manage to take second seed after topping his poule with five wins from five.
McHugh maintained the top seed after the second round of poules, even if his form was slightly less prolific. Davis and McCabe took second and third seeds while Gonzalez took fourth seed. Also spread throughout the poules were some new U-18 faces from Boyne Valley and it was great to see them nicking points from the big names.
The final place in the L16 was to be decided by an all Boyne Valley affair between McCann and Crinion. Time was causing pressure which meant that neither fencer had a coach to guide them through the minute’s break which McCann took an 8-4 lead into. While Crinion rallied to close the gap in the second half, the run didn’t continue and McCann was rewarded with a batism of fire match with McHugh in the L16.
The most eventful aspect of the L16 was the All-Weapons Trophy. Dong was first eliminated (by Kearns) which awarded Halloran with the trophy despite being knocked out himself a few minutes later 15-8 by Gonzalez.
One of the names to watch at the start of the competition was Alex Chekowski (?) who has impressed lately especially at the Souths. He must surely have been looking for a break into the semi’s but it may still be a bit too soon for the Belrussian. My prediction is that he’ll cause some upsets yet in the latter half of the season if he keeps up his training.
The semi-final line-up consisted of the best fencers of the past season with McHugh facing Gonzalez in a Trinity affair. This could well be Gonzalz’ last competition in Ireland before returning to Columbia. The second semi-final was a repeat of the final in Carrickfergus where Davis faced McCabe.
McCabe had the edge over Davis after an early exchange of points and when the battle in the middle started to swing in McCabe’s favour, Davis couldn’t mix up his game enough to change the direction in which the match was going. The other semi-final saw McHugh through to the final in a match that went from high levels of tension to humour between points between the fencers and the president.
In the final, McHugh performed strongly and despite some good attacks in the middle from McCabe, he couldn’t rely on his usually successful counterattacks to the same extent as he might have liked. McHugh went home with his first trophy in what he must hope is the first of many.
It was a good sign of things to come for Ireland too as both McHugh and McCabe will be fencing together at the Five Nations in a month’s time. The season has kicked off in earnest now as the Wests and the VDS are up in the next two weeks so by the end of November we will have a much better idea of how the season will progress.
