Rudar from Stanari - near the city of Doboj in Republic of Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina - have played their first competitive game of rugby league after forming three months ago.

The club, meaning miners because of their links to a nearby coal mine, faced Banja Luka’s White Rabbits, going down 28-0 in front of over 200 fans in a match refereed by Slobodan Manak from the Serbian Rugby League Federation.

Jovan Vujosevic, the RLEF director for the Central and East Europe is delighted with the progress being made by the sport in the new territory.

“I’m proud of all work that Sreten Zec, who led this project, has undertaken in very short period of time. In less than a year we have two fully registered clubs and a third on the way. We are now looking at the formation of the Federation of Republic of Srpska, Bosnia and Herzegovina and an application to the RLEF for observer membership.”

Sreten Zec, the founder of the rugby league in Bosnia and Herzegovina, added, “I’m very happy that we showed the game to the crowd in Stanari and that everybody remained fascinated with rugby league. Next step is a three club championship that we will start in next few weeks. We also hope that in mean time we will form fourth club with one of our potential targets being the famous city of Visegrad, where we have people interested in the sport.”