Croatia have won two from two and are top of Pool B in the Rugby Europe Men’s Conference after they defeated Austria 24-18 away from home at the weekend. In the same competition, there were also Saturday victories for Finland and Greece with bonus points.
After Austria and Croatia had both won their opening games well the week before, a lot of people were looking forward to seeing how the match between the two sides played out.
And, at the Sepp-Doll-Stadion in Krems an der Donau, the two teams did not disappoint as they played out a cracker.
Croatia got off to the perfect start when they scored an unconverted try via tighthead prop Daniel Mau'u after seven minutes.
They then had a man sin binned six minutes later and Austria took advantage, centre Victor Allen going over for a try with full-back Max Karpeles converting.
Just before they were back to 15 men, Croatia retook the lead when scrum-half Niko Vranesevic scored a try and converted it to make it 12-7.
Croatia’s discipline kept letting them down though as once back to 15 they were soon returning to 14 after a second yellow card.
That allowed Austria to score a penalty via Karpeles and then a try through winger Julian Terler.
It all meant that Austria were 15-12 up at the break, but they were the ones losing a player to the bin early in the second period and 15-man Croatia scored a try through their hooker Martin Altamirano.
That made it 17-15 after 43 minutes and it stayed that way until the 71st minute when Croatia’s Mau'u scored his second try and Vranesevic converted.
Austria salvaged a losing bonus point late on thanks to a penalty by Karpeles, but Croatia won by six points.
WEEKEND ACTION
Finland got their Pool A campaign up and running with a 36-3 home win over Estonia at the Ruutisavu Areena in Vantaa.
No.8 Stefan Rogers, tighthead prop Mauno Konttila and winger Joshua Charnock scored first half tries with winger Jiri Myllyviita converting one as they led 17-0 at the break.
A penalty from Estonia winger Arsenii Zigan got them on the scoreboard early in the second half, but then the rest of the scoring belonged to Finland.
Myllyviita, centre Matias Hyytiainen and sub Leo Ikonen scored tries and stand-off Thomas Finell converted one.
Greece are top of Pool E after an emphatic 65-0 win over Kosovo at the Municipal Stadium of Keratsini Panagiotis Salpeas in Keratsini.
The home side were already 22-0 up by the time Kosovo had a player red carded after 30 minutes and from there it was very one-sided.
It was 32-0 at half-time and 65-0 by the end, No.8 Jimmy Dorizas scoring the last of 11 tries near the end.
This coming weekend the competition continues with four matches.
Estonia are hosting Luxembourg, Croatia are playing Slovenia, Cyprus are away to Gibraltar and Israel are playing Andorra in Andorra on Saturday.
