The 2011 Czech Rugby League season opened with a now traditional double-header on Saturday, 9 April at Srbsko, home ground of the 2010 Czech champions, Beroun. The Black Panthers hosted Vrchlabi, debuting in the competition this year, in the first match of the day, followed by Pardubice and Prague in the afternoon.
The rookie Vrchlabi Mad Squirrels opened their match against Beroun confidently, taking the match to their hosts with aggressive hard-running forward play, and were the 1st to post points with impressive hooker Radek Mejznar sending outstanding young half-back, Stanislav Kosar, racing in for a try midway through the 1st half. Beroun soon hit back though, with Jan Buben showing strength as well as skill to force his way over the line, before converting his own try to give the Black Panthers a 6-4 lead. Vrchlabi continued to bombard the Beroun defensive line, but made crucial handling errors which prevented them converting their field advantage, and the more wily Black Panthers took full advantage, running in 2 more opportunistic tries towards the end of the half to give them a comfortable 16-4 half-time lead which was not a particularly accurate reflection of the closeness of the 1st half.
In the 2nd half Beroun, despite being down to a bare reserves bench, showed their experience to totally outplay Vrchlabi with a deft passing game & impressive hole running. The Mad Squirrels, in contrast, found that their attempts to blast their way through to the tryline were fruitless especially when confronted with an inability to reflect their greater size with any form of domination in the ruck area, and did not improve on their half-time score. The Black Panthers ran in 3 more 2nd half tries, Buben, David Dolak & Ondrej Shilavy instrumental in everything creative they did, while Lukas Vasek was rewarded for his constant toil with the final try of the day.
In the 2nd match of the day Pardubice suffered an early set-back when inspirational captain Mirek Horacek suffered a broken arm in only the 3rd minute of the match. However, with Pavel Zemanek, and Darek Blatak leading from the front, the Jets still managed to assert their dominance over a less experienced, notably lighter, team. Victor Leeuw was simply outstanding, constantly weaving his way through the bamboozled Prague defence, while Dylan Cayer grabbed every opportunity which came his way on the right wing, to run in a hat-trick on debut for Pardubice. For Prague, captain Ben Grimwade constantly led his team forward, Jamie Sherrington was brave in defence & and elusive in attack, and Swedish player, Jacob Westberg, was particularly hard to handle, running in 2 tries.
CZRLA President, John Anderson was enthusiastic about the season’s opening, stating that: “it has been a fantastic day, with 2 good standard games played in great spirit, by a bunch of enthusiastic lads who have shown great commitment to taking our sport forward in the Czech Republic.”
CZRLA results (9.4.11):
Beroun 34 (Jan Buben 2, Ondrej Silhavy, Tomas Patera, Jan Oberman, Lukas Vasek tries; Jan Buben 3, David Dolak 2 goals) Vrchlabi 4 (Stanislav Kosar 1 try)
Pardubice 46 (Dylan Cayer 3, Victor Leeuw 2, Vitek Rejda, Mike Masia, Pavel Zemanek tries; Allen Chicambwi 5, Victor Leeuw 2 goals) Prague 16 (Jacob Westberg 2, Barhan Ihaynak 1 tries; Rhys Latham 2 goals)