The forecast was for rain, but for once the sun was shining on Swiss Super 7’s as 14 Dangels plus 7’s coach Chris headed to Bern to kick-off the new season. Excitement was at fever-pitch after a rugby-less summer for most players. Selina & Hildi played with our sister club Basel Birds leaving our 12-player match-day squad to fight it out against Cern, Konstanz and Yverdon in our pool. We started strongly against Cern, with Lolli crossing the line for our first try in less than a minute. These three games saw us get some of the rustiness out of our systems; discipline at the breakdown, passing in-front of the player and communication improved with each game. Lolli’s kick-offs to Lala and Julia flying through the air to pluck the ball away from the opposition were highlights too. We won the pool games 52-0, 40-0 and 38-0.
Next-up a semi-final against our deadly rivals Zurich. As expected, the Zurich defense was well-organized with strong tackling, but 2 tries in each half saw us seal a 22-0 victory.
And so, to the final v. Bern. A familiar story to last season. Bern have improved massively in the last 2 years and we had many close battles with them, particularly in 7’s and they deservedly took a close 2nd place to us in last years’ 7’s championship. Bern’s defense was as well-organized and strong as Zurich’s with a little extra pace thrown in also. Our nerves showed early on as we each tried to do a little too much by ourselves instead of letting the ball and our team-mates do the work. We settled in though, and soon the tries started to flow, the final result 33-0!
A spectacular day of rugby with a total score of 185-0. Some of the tries were scrappy, some of them were poetry in motion; but most importantly of all in 70 minutes of 7’s rugby against the best clubs in Switzerland, we didn’t concede a single try.
Special mention to Carien & Miri who not only played their first games of rugby, but also both scored tries!!
Angel of the Day: Schlumpf: rock solid defense & great running lines – just what our coach asked for.
Devil of the Day: Lolli: demonstrated fantastic drop-kicking skills by sending many kick-offs ~11-12 metres, giving us a chance to win the ball back … she then managed to slice one so badly it went backwards!
Unfortunately, Konstanz are not able to field a team in the 15’s league this season so we have no home game next Saturday; we are hopefully playing a friendly game against the French team from St. Louis in Basel.