The inaugural CZRLA 2nd Division Championship kicked-off at the weekend, with 4 of the 5 clubs in the competition competing in a round-robin 13-a-side tourney, with the Usti nad Labem Dragons being the most successful team on the day finishing with 2 wins and a draw from their three games.

The enthusiasm for rugby league by the new clubs was best articulated by four try Usti centre, Jaroslav Bzoch, who revelled in the atmosphere of the day and is already keenly anticipating the 2nd round of CZRLA 2nd Division matches in Hradec. ‘‘Today was fantastic!“ he enthused,  ‘‘we have a great bunch of guys here at the Dragons who didn’t even know each other three months ago, and most of us didn’t know much about rugby league either. But we love it now – the power and the pace – and we will only get better!“

The CZRLA 2nd Division was established this year to harness the boom in Czech rugby league clubs wanting to play domestic matches. The five clubs will meet on each of their respective home grounds twice throughout the April-November season.

The four-strong CZRLA 1st Division kicks-off in two weeks, with this coming weekend to see the 4th annual Pardubice Beach Touch Rugby Tournament to be played. The opening round of the 1st Division will see a rematch between the 2011 Czech Grand Finalists when the 2010 Czech Champions, Beroun, host the 2011 Champions, Pardubice. In the other match of the weekend, Prague Vikings host the Vrchlabi Mad Squirrels.

In keeping with the rise in community rugby laegue in 2012, the CZRLA will also field a record  number of Czech national representative teams. An  under-19 team will play a match with BARLA Youth, as will a Czech Universities team , while the Czech national team will compete both in the CZRLA International 9s Tournament as well as in other matches, to be announced.

Domestic rugby league development is the focus of the CZRLA though, with the RLEF’s Development Manager, Andrew Mulhall, stating that: ‘‘the measurement of our domestic development is not just the fact that we have doubled the amount of clubs playing rugby league in the Czech Republic in under a year, nor even the quality of the play yesterday in what was essentially the debut for most of the players in authentic rugby league, but the physicality of the matches was what impressed me most and what makes me believe that domesitc rugby league in the Czech Republic is taking giant strides forward in establishing itself.

‘‘This gives me great confidence that the foundations are being laid domestically for a standard of competition that will soon see our national team compete with other European national teams purely on the basis of domestically produced rugby league players.“

Pictured: action from Usti nad Labem 

Results of CZRLA 2nd Division, Rd 1:
Usti nad Labem 24 : 0 Hradec Kralove; Havlíčkův Brod 6 : 6 Mikulov; Havlíčkův Brod 10 : 10 Usti nad Labem; Mikulov 12 : 0 Hradec Kralove; Usti nad Labem 20 : 14 Mikulov; Havlíčkův Brod 10 : 4 Hradec Kralove