A draw or win in Greece will see Spain win European Championship C and take the final berth in the 2106 World Cup Qualifiers – Europe. Darren Fisher’s men head to the K2 field of the Olympic Stadium in Athens on Saturday, October 17th 2015 (kick-off at 4.30 pm local time) in confident mood after a 40-30 home win over Malta last time out.
“This week is another great opportunity for us to play a new nation,” he said. “We are as excited about that as continuing our journey on the World Cup pathway. Despite the economic difficulties, we know Greece will be a good, strong, committed team being from a domestic selection and we expect the encounter to again test our players.” Fisher added, “We are looking forward to the game, we know a draw or win will give us the result we want but we will go out there without thinking of that added pressure, as we will be aiming for another good performance on the back of two good results last month.”
The Greek side is selected after AEK Kokkinias were crowned as 9s cup winners at the first tournament of 2015-16 season in Nikaea–Piraeus. The Hellenic RL Federation has scheduled an Attica Region XIII Championship involving AEK Kokkinias, Pyrrihios Aspropyrgou and Aghios Thomas and, at the beginning of 2016, another three teams will start in northern Greece, together with a development 9s championship in Athens with Pegasus Neos Kosmos, Promitheas Rendi, Pyrrihios B’ and Neapoli Lakonia involved.
Pictured: Spain will be looking to finish a job they began in Latvia.
GREECE 20-MAN SQUAD
Giorgin Syti, Touki Arimanana, Dimitris Giannimaras, Giannis Giannimaras, Nikolaos Kostakis (AEK Kokkinias),Alexandros Goumas, Artemis Pittaras, Kostas Roussos, Panagiotis Varypatis, Pavlos Polymeneas (Agios Thomas), Konstantinos Lambrakis (Neapoli Lakonia), Dimitris Ganos, Panagiotis Karmiris (Pegasus neos Kosmos), Andreas Psarakis, Panagiotis Karefilis, Grigoris Koutsimbogiorgos (Promitheas Rendi), Evagelos Ilias, Giorgos Zdanov, Konstantinos Arvanitis, Konstantinos Ilias, Panagiotis Papadopoulos, Sotiris Papasotiriou (Pyrrihios Aspropyrgou)
SPAIN 20-MAN SQUAD
Cedric Bringuier (Baho XIII), Diego Lagunas, Ezequiel Perez-Fuster, Hadriel Mehamed González (Ciencias XIII), Antonio Puerta, Dani Moreno, Jose Manuel Munoz (Custodians), Chris Lopez (Infantry XIII), Matt Dulley, Juan Pablo Rango, Richi Perelló (Irreductibles Mislata), Dani Garcia, Ivan Mendez (La Reole), Alex Doutres (Palau XIII), Miguel Blanco (Seaton Rangers), Aitor Davila (Tigres Torrent), Gonzalo Morro (Tonneins XIII), Adrian Alonso, Andy Pilkington, Luis Thorp (Valencia Warriors)