EUWRL: Improvements, yet no victory for UWRC Wien
Last weekend, fifteen players from UWRC Wien fearlessly challenged Tampere, Polisen and Molde in the third and last round of the European Underwater Rugby League 2015/16 in Copenhagen. The debut of Hannes Hofmann, a key player from Bamberg, playing for UWRC Wien set the team in an upbeat mood to score their first points.
The first match against the final number two of the league, Tampere from Finland started with a self-confident Viennese Team.
Whereas the Finns scored first, Vienna could soon equalize. A strong performance was to follow with chances on both sides. In the second half, Tampere managed to take the lead again. Vienna was putting up more pressure in their attacks to turn the result around, this granted Tampere the chance to score the decisive 3:1. Two more goals followed after Vienna was opening up. Even though defeated, Coach Heinz Frühwirth praised the teams determination and concluded: “That was a very good game guys. We can see that we are able to challenge even the strongest teams!”
After scoring a goal against the odds-on favorite, the team was determined to win against Polisen, the Club from Stockholm. But the Swedish soon went ahead which was again equalized by the Austrians. Like in the last game, Vienna showed a lot of strong attacks but was not able to score a leading goal. At the end, Polisen showed more efficiency and added two more goals to the final score of 1:3. Captain Thomas Schenkeli noted: “With more determination and a little more luck on our side, we could have won this match.”
On Sunday, Vienna was facing Molde, this year’s unbeaten champion. The confidence from the first two matches was soon to be seen in the water: Vienna was not playing a solely defensive game, it used every chance they got. Molde showed its superiority by leading 3:0 after several minutes, but being multiple winners of the Champions Cup and the Euroleague, as well as having the highest density of world champions of any team in the world, the Norwegians were quite surprised to get scored by the clear underdog of the league:After Captain Thomas Schenkeli scored the 3:1, Vienna was celebrating this like a victory and kept on the positivity under water. Just several moments later, the Austrians even had a 2vs1 scoring opportunity at the Norwegian basket.
But soon, Molde raised their pressure again and scored two goals to the 1:5 at the end of the first half. The second half started just like the first had ended – Molde scoring four goals in a row. But after recapturing the ball in the own half, Hofmann passed to Kalchgruber who accelerated quickly and plunged the ball into Molde’s open basket. After this Molde used its experience and scored seven goals in a row. Even though it was a high loss, Peter Kalchgruber doesn’t want to miss the experience gained by the team: “Scoring one or two goals against Molde is really what we needed. It kills their godlike image of an unbeatable team and regained self-confidence for the whole team”.
The league manager from Vienna Andreas Juffmann finally summarized: “Unfortunately, we have to accept to be at the last position of the league again. The difference to the leading teams still seems huge. Anyway, we had some tighter matches as well this season and do not feel completely out of place. To address the rumors about UWRC Wien’s participation next year: There is no final decision about us staying in the EUWRL yet, lets hope for the best”.
