European Trophy preparations continue

Catherine Nacier and Aneta Šmejdová eye to eye (Photo Martin Flousek)

This season’s Women's Rugby European Trophy will have a special incentive for the participants, as the winner will play the team who finished bottom of the Six Nations – Scotland – for a place in the 2017 World Cup.

At the moment the date and participants for the Trophy tournament have yet to be announced, but several contenders have started their preparations.

We mentionedBelgiumandSpainlast week.

Since then theNetherlandshave opened their XVs season with a steamroller performance by their team at the annual rugby festival in Ghent. European Trophy winners in 2014, the Dutch could not defend their title last year due to financial problems with the Dutch union. However those problems have been resolved andnew coach – Sascha Werlich - appointedwith responsibility for both sevens and fifteens.

As well as reviving the XVs team,the squadfor Ghent was one of the strongest Dutch squads to take the field for some years, with the inclusion of several former members of the professional sevens squad including Anne Hielckert, Joyce van Altena and Lorraine Laros. In addition, players such as Annemarije van Rossum. Elke van Meer, Jannicke IJdens and Pien Selbeck were selected for thesevens squad(who also stormed to a tournament win, beating Poland in the final) and would, in theory, be available for a Trophy fifteens team. All now play fifteens at club level.

The XVs team that was picked for Ghent was still far more powerful than mainly club-based Belgian and Swiss teams they met at the festival. Altogether the “Dutch Lions” scored points in their six games, and conceded none.

To further underline the healthy state of Dutch women’s rugby, their U18 team also reached the final of their competition, losing narrowly in the final to English team Chobham.

Switzerland,runners-up in the 2015 Trophy, were also in action on Easter Monday when they met current US Ivy League champions Brown University, who were on a short tour of central Europe.  The powerful Brown team went into the break ahead, but Switzerland fought back to record a 20-15 win.

Two days later Brown travelled to Prague to meet theCzech Republic, fourth in last year’s Trophy. The match was the first game to be played at the new Markéta stadium, the Czech Rugby Union’s new home and saw the Czechs mainly try to play through their backs, in order to try to counter the power of the American forwards..

It was a tactic that bore dividends with centre Pája Čuprová scoring the opening try after 20th minutes after which flyhalf Martina Hlaváčová nearly added a second, only being stopped by a high tackle that resulted in a penalty try (Šárka Šimánková added the conversion).

Brown fought back after halftime with their first try, but Czech speed ensured that the ball was kept alive as much as possible allowing the Czechs to add a third try through outside centre Kateřina Pokorná on 72 minutes. Brown were able to pull a try back near the end, but the Czechs were nonetheless able to record a confidence building 17-12 win.

The following day the Czech second XV were not so fortunate, losing 42-0 to Brown.

(Thanks to Martin Charvát for the Czech details)