U17 in the news

An article in today's Le Quotidien:

Luxembourg 49 - Laakdal 21

Weather: 13°. Cloudy, no rain
Pitch: Soft
Kickoff: 13:00 (2 x 30 minutes)
Spectators: 108

Luxembourg:
1- Xavier, 2- Yannick, 3- Jason, 4- Louis, 5- Gabriel, 6- Frederico, 7- Antoine, 8- Pedro, 9- Micky, 10- Matthew, 11- Hugo, 12- Callum(c), 13- Stuart, 14- Christopher, 15- Sean

Subs: Ht 20- William for Micky, 42’ 21- Gregoire for Hugo, 50’ 19- Lucas for Pedro, 55’ 16- Niclas for Jason, 56’ 17- Quentin for Yannick, 18- David for Louis, 22- Stanley for Christopher

Score: 10’ 0-7; 11’ 5-7 Hugo, 7-7 Matthew; 25’ 12-7 Callum, 14-7 Matthew; 31’ 19-7 Christopher; 35’ 24-7 Matthew, 26-7 Matthew; 36’ 31-7 Pedro, 33-7 Matthew, 42’ 33-14; 46’ 38-14 Xavier, 40-14 Matthew; 56’ 45-14 William; 60’ 45-21

As both teams had won their first playoff game against Anderlecht this final game would decide the champion of Belgium Cadets 3rd Division.
At the start, a nervous Luxembourg team gave Laakdal the control of the game. In the first 10 minutes Laakdal was the more consistent team on the pitch and it was only logical when they opened the score. At the 10th minute, one of the many penalties conceded by Luxembourg ended in a 15m forwards charge played by the book and gave Laakdal a deserved 7-0 lead. It didn’t last long though. After only one minute, the first collective action of the Luxembourg players ended on the wing with Hugo having the space to run and score. Matthew converted and the score was even. With this try, Luxembourg calmed down and started slowly to gain control. Although the action was happening in both sides of the field, Luxembourg was always much more threatening to the opposition defence. Eventually they got a break near the end of first half when Laakdal was kicking a lot in an attempt to relief pressure. One of the long kicks ended in the hands of Sean and set in move a nice counter attack. When he was tackled, a fast ball from the ruck gave Frederico space to run only to be stopped 5m from the line. Callum followed and scored. With Matthew’s conversion half time arrived with the score at 14-7.
Luxembourg entered second half determined not to make the same mistake they did in the first 10 minutes of the game. Like a force 5 tornado, they swept away the opposition organisation and by the time Laakdal could breathe Luxembourg had scored three tries in 6 minutes. In the first minute, a penalty at half way was quickly played, quickly passed in a way Stuart and Pedro had only to fix the two last defenders to free Christopher on the wing to score. Four minutes later, Matthew set Hugo free on the side, followed and when Hugo was stopped by a desperate tackle, got the ball and scored. One minute after, in a beautiful move the ball was handled from the left side of the pitch to the right and back again to the left. Pedro got the ball and easily beat in speed the disorganized defence with a run of 60m. Matthew converted two to settle the score at 33-7.
As one could expect, Luxembourg couldn’t keep this furious pace for much longer and started to relax. This gave Laakdal some air and took the game to Luxembourg’s 22. On the 12th minute, from a scrum at 5m, Laakdal attacked on the blind and in a 2vs1 situation scored again.
With this try Laakdal got some momentum and started hammering Luxembourg with their strong forward pack. However, Luxembourg fierce defence avoided more damage to the score and it proved to be only temporary when Luxembourg came back again to score two more tries. From a scrum in the opposition half, Pedro went on the blind, passed to Gregoire on the outside who, when tackled, passed to Xavier on the inside to score. From another scrum at 5m, William took the ball and went straight to line, scoring in front of a very surprised Laakdal scrum half. Matthew converted the first try to put the score at 45-14.
Before the end of the game, Laakdal still had time for a glimpse of pride and scored a penalty try when Luxembourg collapsed a maul 2m from the line.
With a good refereeing by M. Jean Jacques Oberst, the game was played in a good spirit with moments of very good rugby. Laakdal proved they deserved to be in the final and be promoted with Luxembourg.
With the U18s victory last season in the European Championship Group D; the 5th place in this season’s Group C; the victory of the U15 in the Alsace Lorraine League last season; with the U17 champions of Belgium 3rd Division; the U15 still playing for the top in their league; with U17 and U19 competing in the Belgium 2nd Division next season, Luxembourg rugby shows it has a present but, more important, it has a future.

Man of the Match: William

Anderlecht 10 - Luxembourg 62

Weather: 14°. Cloudy, no rain
Pitch: Hard
Kick off: 13:30 (2 x 30 minutes)
Spectators: 37

Luxembourg:
1- Xavier, 2- Yannick, 3- Jason, 4- Mario, 5- Gabriel, 6- Frederico, 7- Antoine, 8- Pedro, 9-Micky, 10- Benji, 11- Hugo, 12- Callum(c), 13- Stuart, 14- Gregoire, 15- Sean

Subs: 40’ 20- William for Micky, 45’ 19- Lucas for Pedro, 49’ 21-Matthew for Benji, 50’ 16- Niclas for Xavier, 55’ 22- Stanley for Gregoire, 57’ 17-Pierre for Jason, 18- Quentin for Yannick

Score: 12’ 0-5 Stuart. Benji 0-7; 14’ 0-12 Pedro. Benji 0-14; 24’ 0-19 Pedro; 28’ 0-24 Frederico; 31’ 0-29 Hugo; 35’ 5-29; 38’ 5-34 Sean, Benji 5-36; 40’ 5-41 Sean; 43’ 5-46 Callum, Benji 5-48; 52’ 10-48; 53’ 10-53 Gregoire, Matthew 10-55; 58’ 10-62 Lucas. Matthew 10-64


The first place in Belgium 3rd Division Group B secured Luxembourg a place in the play offs. 3 teams would play each other to decide 3rd Division champion and the two teams promoted to 2nd Division.
After the defeat against Laakdal (0-24) the week end before, Anderlecht knew this game would be decisive and another defeat would put an end to their promotion dreams. Thus it wasn’t a surprise when they started the game trying to score as soon as possible by putting a lot of pressure in Luxembourg defence. For the first 10 minutes the game stayed mostly in Luxembourg 22 but another display of good defence prevented the “mauve”s from scoring. After this period Luxembourg started slowly to move the game to the opposition half and opened the score in the first opportunity. A great pressure from Luxembourg backs made it difficult to Anderlecht to handle the ball in their in-goal and an opportunist Stuart just had to fell on the ball and score. Benji converted to set the score 0-7. Two minutes later, a perfect counter attack found Pedro on the wing and speed did the rest. With Benji conversion the score was now 0-14 and Luxembourg looked more and more comfortable in the game.
Luxembourg was playing an exciting rugby with the ball carrier having always support, the ball moving fast in the backs, forwards dominating rucks and almost no errors. This paid towards the end of first half with 3 tries in just a few minutes. First by Pedro after a quick penalty played inside Anderlecht 22. The second by Frederico as several good passes after contact sent him thru the defence for a run of 40m unopposed. Just before half time, 3 well played ruck phases sent the game to the right of the pitch; the ball was recycled to the back line and quickly passed to the wing on the opposite side for Hugo to score. Score at half time: 0-29
As expected, Anderlecht started second half willing to minimise damage. And they did when 4 consecutive penalties near the try line gave them the opportunity to smash the defence and score. This gave Anderlecht some momentum but Luxembourg wasn’t in the mood and 3 tries in 5 minutes ended any hopes the “mauves” might have to contest the score. Sean scored first after a stupendous back move showed to everybody how to go forward with support. 2 minutes later Sean scored again. This time entering in the back line and avoiding two tackles. At this moment Anderlecht organisation was completely shattered and 3 minutes later Luxembourg got a turn over, Benji kicked in the middle, the Anderlecht full back couldn’t handle the ball and Callum coming at full speed ran half pitch to score in the middle of the posts. Benji converted two of the three tries putting the score at 5-48.
With 20 minutes still to play and the victory assured, Luxembourg slowed the pace thus allowing Anderlecht a bit of supremacy which ended in a try. From a penalty 10m from the line a sloppy defence left the side unprotected and with 4vs1 the “mauves” scored. However, Anderlecht didn’t have much time to savour the try as one minute later things were back to normal when another perfect back move ended with Gregoire scoring on the wing. Matthew converted to set the score at 10-55.
The game was coming to the end with both teams replacing players but Luxembourg didn’t miss another opportunity and scored the 10th try of the afternoon. This time an all forwards work: 5 ruck phases inside Anderlecht 22, 4 pick and go well played and a couple of pop passes ended with Lucas scoring. Matthew converted to settle the final score at 10-62.
Apart from a short period at the beginning of the game, there were never any doubts about who was the best team. Luxembourg played without question their best game of the season with a very entertainment rugby which pleased even the hardest Anderlecht supporter. The forward pack performed superbly dominating the scrums and rucks. Ball carrier support was always good. This gave the backs the perfect attack platform and with Micky and Benji first, William and Matthew after, the transition to the back line was always the best. The backs took full advantage of it performing some really good moves, making almost no errors and scoring some beautiful tries. An outstanding Sean showed the way.

Man of the match: Sean

U17 - 3B Belgium Cadets Playoff2 Luxembourg - Laakdal

This Saturday we will play Laakdal for the final of the Belgium Cadets 3B league.

Luxembourg-Laakdal

Kickoff: 13:00

Cessange

For the players not in the FIRA Camp, please, be there at 11:45. For the ones in the Camp I need to ask the parents for a favour: we need transportation from INS to Cessange and back. We have already some cars but we have to take 22 and a couple more would be better. We’ll leave from INS at 11:30 and we’ll be back around 15:00.

Players:

BAUR Niclas
BEIER Stanley
BONALLO Callum
BOONE Yannick
BOONE Xavier
CARROLL Sean
COCHET Hugo
LAVIS Louis
DENNIS William
GENEST Grégoire
GIRAUDO, Frederico
HOPWOOD Matthew
LANNOY Pierre
LIMPACH Jason
LOGIER Stuart
LOWTHER Lucas
MAURICE Gabriel
PESCHEUX Quentin
RAMOS Pedro
ROUSSEL Antoine
ROSSA Christopher
RIZZI Micky

Anderlecht - Luxembourg Play-off 3rd Division U17

This Saturday we are going to Brussels to play Anderlecht for the first play-off game of the Belgium Cadets 3B league.

ANDERLECHT-LUXEMBOURG

Kickoff: 13:30

Rue de Scherdemael, 284
1070 Anderlecht
Belgium

We will leave from Glacis at 9:00 so, please, be there at 8:45.
Estimated arrival time: 18:30

As usual, we can only have 22 players in the game sheet but you are all invited to come and support your team. We need everybody in this difficult game which may decide who goes up to 2nd Division and a team is not only the 22 in this convocation but the 36 who played an official game this season plus the others who didn’t make it yet.
So, Joe, Francesco, Pascal, David, James please come and bring your gear if you can. We never know.
Bring the CSCE uniform (polo and tracksuit) and something to eat before the game
Jason, Quentin, Lucas and Pierre, we’ll pick you up at Weyler 9:30.

Players:

BAUR Niclas
BEIER Stanley
BONALLO Callum
BOONE Yannick
BOONE Xavier
CARROLL Sean
COCHET Hugo
DELLAGIACOMA Mario
DENNIS William
GENEST Grégoire
GIRAUDO, Frederico
HOPWOOD Matthew
LANNOY Pierre
LIMPACH Jason
LOGIER Stuart
LOWTHER Lucas
MAURICE Gabriel
PESCHEUX Quentin
RAMOS Pedro
ROUSSEL Antoine
RIZZI Micky
SIMPSON Benjamin

Standby: ACKERMANN Joe, DOOLEY James, FIORI Francesco, LOSCHETTER Pascal, SCHWENGLER David