PDF - Women's Rugby, Austria

WOMEN’S RUGBY AUSTRIA5‐0 lead at half time. In the second half, we were still struggling with their system and could not find a wayto cross the try line. Another Danish try put a 10‐0 on the board, but we did not give up. After a nicely runand successful passing play, we managed to score a try, and with a converted kick, started a 10‐7 race tocatch up. Unfortunately, that race began too late and time was against us so that was the final score. Forthe last game of the day team Austria came up against rugby nation Wales. Knowing their type of game(we played them at Rugby Rocks London a couple of weeks prior) our realistic goal for this game washaving fun and giving them a challenging and fun match. What a game it proved to be! We even managedto get dangerously close to out try line twice, which was more than a win for us! The scoreboard said 0‐42for Wales, but we enjoyed the game and could see the reality of the difference in experience between usand our wonderful opponent. We fought and played our hearts out and every single player enjoyed thatgame! Our coach enjoyed the fact that, as usual, we play a much more composed and organized gameversus stronger opponents but wished for us that we manage to play such organized rugby against weakerand less structured teams as well in order for us to enjoy those games more.On Sunday, our first opponent and final pool game was Bosnia Herzegovina. We had played them years agowhen we were still in Group B and at ENTC, but have not come across them on the pitch for a while. Ourprimary goal was to win this and keep our 4 th rank in the pool in order to stay in the race for top 5. The firstcouple of minutes of the game we had some ball handling challenges and cased many scrums with resultsin tiring our forwards and takes up valuable playing and scoring time. We went into half‐time with only 2tries against them, but were not satisfied at all with our performance. Knowing we need more points todefend our ranking, we pushed ourselves to do more and fight harder in the second half. VISUALISECATCHING THOSE BALLS AND MAKING THOSE DREAM PASES!! And it worked! Our hands caught everypass, and our legs were still speedy and we finished the match with a score of 44‐0. We had achieved ourfirst goal and started into the afternoon as 4 th in our pool ready to face Latvia in the cross‐games. The oneand only goal left for the afternoon was to fight and win 5 th place.Our cross‐game proved to be a real fight, as neither of the teams seemed to play offensively but only delayand defend. The game mainly consisted of scrums and line‐outs due to many ball handling errors from bothsides. Just before the half time call, we managed to pull ourselves together and put more and morepressure on the opposition. Following a quick all‐hands pass from one side of the field over to the other,the Latvians could not cover our wing and we touched down when the whistle blew. With a 5‐0 lead, wewent into halftime, discussing what we need to do in order to win this game. Motivated and with fullcommitment, we set ourselves up for kick‐off. A tackle was missed, and the opposition managed to breakthe line, followed by a long fast run over the whole field. Our sweeper started for a hard chase and got anamazing back‐tackle just in time to successfully prevent a try not even a meter from the try‐line. Nowhaving all determination possible in such a situation, team Austria turned the game around and scoredanother wing‐try against Latvia, to finish this fight with a 10‐0 victory.Winning this cross‐game put us into the plate final for rank 5. After Denmark had won their semi‐finalagainst Bulgaria, our last opponent of this tournament was clear, a rematch versus Denmark. We weredefinitely thirsty for revenge after the previous day’s loss!WOMEN’S RUGBY CENTER SCHÖNBRUNN – ZVR Zahl: 990707307Schönbrunner Schloss Strasse 52, 1130 Vienna, AustriaCell: +43 676 536 1971 / 43 676 536 1970

WOMEN’S RUGBY AUSTRIAPumped for this game, we marched onto the pitch. 7 minutes into the game it hit us, we were behind 12‐0due to defensive mistakes such as not shifting faster and using our pressure defense and not seeing thegaps for our attack line to break through. At halftime we gathered everything we had left, we motivatedourselves to pick up the race and make this count since the results would stay with us until the next Euros.2 tries and a conversion put us the overtime, which is played according to the sudden death principle (firstscore wins). Just after the Danish kicked off, we did not lose possession of the ball, and attacked first left,then right, and then found a gap in the right defensive line and used it. Putting the ball down behind theline meant the Austrian team won the plate final, finishing the European Championship in 5 th place, stayingin the Division A and putting us in 17 th place in the FIRA‐AER European ranking.BIG THANKS!Big thanks go out to everyone who has supported us throughout the year:first and foremost to, Coach Renee Carmine‐Jones, who does everything in her power to support andstrengthen the team and to her family for sharing her with us;to our Captain Eva Weissenböck who played her last cap on the National Team representing Austria at thisEuro 2012;to Kerry Slife who came over for several years giving up her USA life to live and work out of the Club Houseso she could scrum‐half for the national team, this was also her last National Team game for Austria;to Catherine Teisset who came to the rescue several times for Women’s Rugby Austria, back when she wasliving in Austria and after; she also played her last National Team game for Austria.to our Euro Champ Manager Anna Caplice, who did a tremendous job in Bulgaria in time keeping, cointossing (lucky manager!) and motivating the team;to our Magician & Physio Georgie who kept all of us playing in spite of injuries! You are a true hero!to our two wonderful Bulgarian minders, Hristina and Nana, who were always happy to help at all timesand who became part of our rugby family!to our two fans imported from home, Michi and Anke, who made the trip to watch and support us in everyway they could, taking pictures and videos, filling up water / Isostar bottles, etc.Last, but not least, to everyone at home who supported us, among others:to Doctor Schwab and Dr. Kaiser for the many visits from various players, depending on who was availablewhen since both doctors have a heavy schedule and great reputation!to Elke for her rehabilitation support, advise and supplies;for our weekly sessions a big thanks to our Tae Bo Drill Master Jürgen Rauner, Mister Tae Bo Austria, andto his supportive and patient Tae Bo community!to Amir Yassari for his mental coaching session;to our union president , Andreas Schwab, for sharing his perspective on rugby and being part of a nationalteam and representing Austria;to our dear Philipp Grausam who can be grausam and tough but still loves us in showing us how to gainmore aggression or determination on the pitch and to take advantage of the little tricks in the fabulousgame of rugby, to help us RETAIN & REGAIN!!;Thanks to FIRA‐AER and their staff for the opportunity to compete and rank against all Euro teams;and last but not least, to all our rugby friends and families!THANK YOU!WOMEN’S RUGBY CENTER SCHÖNBRUNN – ZVR Zahl: 990707307Schönbrunner Schloss Strasse 52, 1130 Vienna, AustriaCell: +43 676 536 1971 / 43 676 536 1970

WOMEN’S RUGBY AUSTRIAWe would also like to thanks our SPONSORS who have helped us reach our rugby dreams and goals!!Thanks to Constantin Carmine (aka. Tini) who never ceased to support us through WRC Schönbrunn andfinancially wherever it seemed funding had stopped. He never stopped believing in us and saw potential inus that others did not.Thanks to Fa. Alois Carmine, Vulcan and Pro Blankets who sponsor our various national league and nationalteam training camps because they get pulled in by the potential that Tini sees in his rugby girls!Thanks to Johnny and Johnny’s Pub who has also set some of his hopes in the development of Women’sRugby Austria.The team would also like to wish their player, Raphaela Hein, a quick recovery to her knee. She alreadywent in for surgery with our wonderful Dr. Schwab before the European Championships and is going towork hard to get back on the rugby pitch!The Austrian National Team for the Euro / World Cup Qualifier 2012:1 Sarah Matej (FRU Schönbrunn)2 Tamara Kinast (WRC Innsbruck)3 Angelika Kirchlechner (RC Mainz)4 Kerry Slife (FRU Schönbrunn)5 Eva Weissenböck (FRU Schönbrunn, c)6 Christina Sponner (FRU Schönbrunn)7 Angelika Grabher (FRU Schönbrunn)8 Catherine Teisset (RC Sankt Pauli)9 Laura Wunsch (WRC Innsbruck)10 Nadja Marx (WRC Innsbruck)11 Samantha Middleton (FRU Schönbrunn)12 Raphala Hein (RC Leoben) – knee injury, could not participateWOMEN’S RUGBY CENTER SCHÖNBRUNN – ZVR Zahl: 990707307Schönbrunner Schloss Strasse 52, 1130 Vienna, AustriaCell: +43 676 536 1971 / 43 676 536 1970