There was drama until the very last seconds of the final men’s Rugby Europe Super Cup group phase match at the weekend before Brussels Devils made sure of the knock-out semi-final place.
With the clock ticking down at home to the Romanian Wolves, the Belgian team needed one more try to get the bonus point victory they needed to finish on the third seat, avoiding the Iberians, the strongest team in the competition.
Their forwards battered away and they managed to score under the posts when replacement Simon Rimac went over from short range. Full-back Jack Kellner converted for good measure and the five match points mean the Devils will be playing knock-out rugby in January.
After five rounds in the six-team event Castilla Y Leon Iberians from Spain finished top of the tree on 25 points, Lusitanos from Portugal finished second on 20 points, the Devils finished third on 10 points, Delta from Netherlands finished fourth on nine points, the unlucky Bohemia Warriors from Czechia finished fifth on nine points and the Wolves from Romania finished bottom on zero points.
It all means that, on the weekend of January 17, Iberians will host Delta and the Devils will travel to face Lusitanos in the semi-finals.
At the weekend, round five of the group phase began with Delta going to Prague and winning 45-28 against the Warriors on Saturday.
The Warriors led 21-19 at the interval and, indeed, led 28-24 with 20 minutes to go, but then Delta found an extra bit of energy and ran in three converted tries to make sure of an away victory. The last one came from replacement hooker Ethan Stratton to put the icing on the cake.
Next up on Saturday in Lisbon was the meeting of the two unbeaten sides Lusitanos and Iberians.
Iberians raced into a 12-0 lead, but Lusitanos came back into things and it was 12-10 at the break.
Lusitanos then went 13-12 up before a penalty try and a converted one by full-back Beltran Ortega Martin gave Iberians the 26-13 triumph.
The last game on Saturday was the aforementioned Devils-Wolves clash and the hosts knew what they had to do - get a win and a bonus point and they would be into the semis.
The home side set the tone for proceedings early on when winger Antoine Vegis went over for a converted try after two minutes.
By half-time they were 24-10 up and, by the hour mark, 30-15 up.
In the last 20 minutes, sub Marius Dehoust scored a converted try for the Devils, but scrum-half Stefan Rares Mirzac did the same for the Wolves and it was 37-22.
Then, with eight minutes to go, the Wolves had a man yellow carded and the Devils took advantage with replacement Simon Degand scoring a converted try in the 73rd minute and then Rimac’s previously mentioned score at the death getting them what they required after an amazing day of action.
By Gary Heatly
