Poland had the upper hand over neighbours Czechia who fielded a young side for their annual clash.

Mateusz Kowalewski scored a hat trick for the home side and kicked seven out of eight conversion attempts to record a personal haul of 26 of Poland’s 46 points scored.

"We're really proud of our boys” said Łukasz Łucka , Poland’s acting coach. “It was a great effort from them and though we know the Czechs weren’t at their strongest, we’re very happy about the score and that the team successfully executed everything we practiced during the national team camp.

“Playing against Czechia is always a great experience for us, no matter the score. We're lucky to have such amazing rugby league people as our neighbours. The city of Kalisz is always very welcoming to Poland Rugby League and the people from local club Husaria make sure everything is perfectly organised whenever we play here. We're really looking forward to coming back to Kalisz next year."

Thomas Zerbe opened the scoring with just two minutes on the clock as he calved through the middle of the field. Jonathan Tutak followed him in shortly afterwards, barging his way through the middle.

Kowalewski scored his first, racing away from the defence to put Poland into a commanding lead.

But Czechia fought back, with centre Antonin Hron finding his way through to get Czechia off the mark.

A quick fire double from Maciej Myszkowski and Kowalewski adding his second before half time gave the home side a 30-4 lead at the break.

Czechia opened the second half scoring as Tomas Adamec jinked his way through for the visitors.

But the day belonged to Poland, with Kowalewski’s hat trick preceding prop Stanislaw Scibor punching his way through the middle. Łukasz Kostecki’s try, the only one which went unconverted, came 10 minutes before the end.

Despite a stronger second half performance from the Czechs, they were unable to improve the scores.

“I’d like to congratulate Poland on the win” added Czechia coach Tomas Adamec. “We should have been more aggressive and used our hands more to move the ball, but Poland were a big side and our younger players found that difficult. But I am proud of the young guys. But it was a big day for Poland and they should be proud of their win.”