On Sunday 12 March 2017, the Fédération Luxembourgeoise de Rugby’s (FLR) U16 XV and U18 XV teams won their respective matches against German team Baden Wurtemberg (RBW), at Boy Konen Cessange.
There was a difficult start for the U16 Luxemburgers with the RBW quickly taking over match and territorially dominating at the beginning of the encounter.
The score was rebalanced at the end of the first period which ended in the score of 7 to 5 in favour of the FLR U16 team, thanks to Matteo Franzina and a test marked by Chobe Sweetnam.
Amidst a lot of scraps and hand-fouls, that slowed down the home team’s advance, the Luxembourgers still dominated 22 to 5 by the second half-time and with a final score of 36 to 12 for the locals.
As such, the U16 Luxemburgers have succeeded this season with two wins in two matches.
This successful match was followed by the U18 XV team, who started the match off well. Meanwhile, the German team made many errors that were then exploited by the with David O'Sullivan stealing the ball in the opposing field. Luxembourg was in the lead 6 to 0 in 10 minutes.
In the next ten minutes the Luxembourgish team scored twice more: first in the 18th minute by Ivor Dabadie and then in the 26th minute by Valério Bertino. Luxembourg was thus in the lead 18 to 0 at halftime.
The second half proved to be more difficult for the local team, in the face of several RBW attacks and missed tackles on behalf of the Luxembourgers, leading to a score of 18 to 5 in the first five minutes of play in the second period.
However, by the end of the match, the U18’s from Luxembourg won with a victory of 18 to 12.
The victory leaves the team in good spirits for the European Championship which will take place in France from 6 to 16 April.
Photo by David Virot
