Netherlands winger Mitch Donnelly scored six tries as his side wrested back the Griffin Cup, winning 44-18 in Hattingen. The match was delayed due to the large crowd that queued to get in, and they saw a masterclass from Damon Koolstra who set up Donnelly for most of his scores.

The victory saw the Netherlands lead 6-5 in the annual series and was the fourth successive win for the Oranje in their autumn men’s senior international matches, Harry Mulligan continuing his fine form with 16 points.

Netherlands head coach, Dave Hunter, commented: “It was a really good day for rugby league and pleasing to win the Griffin Cup back from Germany, who did an amazing job of organising the game. We performed well, although I’m still disappointed that we make mistakes and let teams back into games for large periods. Positively, we found out where their weaknesses were and were able to exploit them. We have one more match to go this year, the guys are going to stay switched on and focussed to get the job done and hopefully make it five out of five.”

 Germany fought back after the break with winger Fabian Kramer crossing for the first two of their four tries, with Alex Nyahoe completing a scrambling move from an offload for the third and Mawuli Amefia burrowing out dummy-half for the fourth score, but the bigger success was their largest-ever attendance, over half of whom were children, with food and beer supplies running low.

President of Germany RL, Bob Doughton, noted: “The teams were fairly evenly matched, the real difference was that the Netherlands benefited from having played three times in the build-up. But with the record crowd - some 200 of whom stayed after the match enjoying the atmosphere - it was as if the result was immaterial and the task for us now is to build on this.”