Finland captures fifth place at 2017 women’s worlds

Photo credit: Geoff White (gw-images)

Finland earned their first victory of the 2017 IFAF Women’s World Championship on Friday June 30 as they defeated Australia 35-0. The game opened the final day of competition at McLeod Stadium in Langley, BC.

With the victory, Finland finished the 2017 tournament in fifth place while Australia will look to improve upon a sixth place finish in four years time.

Scoring summary

Player of the game Laura Pulkkinen scored three touchdowns (two rushing and a third receiving) to lead Finland to the win.

Initially, Pulkkinen did not make the national team roster.  However, due to an injury, the running back received the call to join the team roughly a week before the start of the tournament.

“Laura was also in the qualification camps and she didn’t originally make it on the team,” said Finland head coach Mika Eloranta. “A player got injured… we called (about) a week before the tournament (to serve as a replacement).”

The late addition had a career day against Australia on Friday morning.

“Laura had a solid effort throughout the tournament and today was just Laura’s day. She was catching all the balls and running well.”

“If you have three touchdowns you have to have the player of the game.”

For her part, playing in this tournament and her performance on Friday were major accomplishments in her career.

“These three games have been my first (with the) international team and it’s been great. It had been my dream and now it’s come true,” said Pulkkinen.

Australia was trailing by a touchdown with the final seconds of the first half winding down, however, one play changed the outcome of the game in an instant. On the final play of the opening half, Finland intercepted an Australia pass and returned the ball to the end zone. The score helped Finland seize momentum heading into the second half.

“We had great momentum going into the halftime,” said Australia head coach Jen Welter. “We had a couple of great stops on defense and wanted to give the offense one more shot to make it. Unfortunately it was intercepted and taken back. Our girls never really fully recovered from that.”

Despite Australia ending their run at the tournament without a win, they leave British Columbia knowing the future is bright for women’s football in their country.

“A lot of the girls were very upset because it’s never easy to lose but what we talked about (immediately following the game as a team) is what a win it was for the country,” said Welter. “Each of those players has now seen how great that this game can be… they were all essentially all-stars in their own clubs and that was the bar that was set.”

“Now when you step onto a bigger stage, you see both that you belong there but also how far that you still need to go. I challenged each of them to become a spark in their own individual clubs to show them how great they can be and to never settle for just being the best in a small pond. “

This post is also available in: French