On Saturday afternoon, Luxembourg's men's rugby team suffered a 3-33 home defeat to the Czech Republic at the Stade Josy Barthel in Luxembourg city.
The match was Luxembourg's fourth in the Rugby Europe Conference 1 North, with the Red Lions suffering their fourth consecutive defeat following promotion from the lower division in 2016, a division they look destined to return to once the round-robin games are concluded.
On the same day that Sweden suffered a heavy 14-52 home defeat to Lithuania, the divison leaders, the Czech Republic, had travelled to the Grand Duchy in high hopes of extending their unbeaten lead at the top of the table.
In the end, the visitors had scored five tries and concerted four of them, whereas Luxembourg's sole points came from one penalty successfully converted by outhalf Dozin after ten minutes. By that stage the Czech Republic had already scored one concerted try. By half-time the score was 3-14 with the visitors adding another converted try. The second half saw the visitors keeping the home side scoreless while adding another three tries, and converting two. Final score 3-33.
Luxembourg's captain, Saman Rezapour, had to leave the field due to injury just before half time and, despite being replaced by Nzali, the team lacked leadersip after that.
The crowd was confirmed by the organisers as being 1,100.
TEAMS
Luxembourg: 1.Blanchet 2.Dee 3.Rezapour (cap) 4.Schaap 5.Colsen 6.Vert 7.Kimmel 8.Kremer 9.Geoffreys 10.Dozin 11.Stone 12.Logier 13.Ketema 14. Vimond 15.Keane; Substitutes: Marcus, Lux, Poulet, Remedi, Bouobda Nzali, Dennis, Calmont, Timmermans.
Czech Republic: 1.Prusa 2.Drimal 3.Elis 4.Frank 5.Voves (cap.) 6.Mara 7.Havel 8.Loutocky 9.Simak 10.Jursik 11.Forst 12.Pantucek 13.Kovai 14.Schlanger 15.Cizek; Substitutes: Benda, Hodek, Olbrich, Hosek, Kohout, Kucera, Soural.
