Fourth win in a row
The Eagles continued their winning streak. We do not remember the last time we had such a series of victories in competitions under the auspices of the European Rugby Federation. Serbia defeated Montenegro 62-0, scoring 31 points in both halfs of the game. For the Montenegrins, this is their first appearance outside the development group, so we did not expect them to give us too many problems. Admittedly, our defense was up to the task, so the guests did not have too many scoring opportunities.
Successful start and 5 registered points
Already after the first twenty minutes of the match, we secured a bonus point. We didn’t have too many good starts in the past seasons. Be that as it may, we don’t have much time to celebrate, as next weekend we have a difficult away game, where Turkey will host us in Trabzon. If we play at the same level as before, then we don’t have to worry too much about the result. But we have to prove all that on the field, which has not been a problem for Serbia so far.
A furious start of the match
At the very beginning of the match, the Eagles seemed very motivated, with the intention of making a difference as soon as possible. That’s exactly what happened in the 4th minute, when Serbia had an out in the opponent’s half of the field. Successfully performed out, where Boris Martić makes a phase in the middle of the field, then the ball quickly reaches the wing where two more quick phases are formed. Then an excellent review of the game by Aljoša Avramović who starts the action on the closed side, the ball comes to Julien Matijašević, who scores an try for a 5-0 lead.
In 7th minute Serbia showed why pressure on the opponent’s lineout is as important as winning their own. Montenegro had a lineout exactly ten meters from half of the field in its own part of the field. Pressure was created with our jumper, which led to a bad throw in. Aleksandar Mađanović and Alen Ćosović won the ball and open it towards the backs. Then the ball comes to Matijašević, who kicks a grabber towards the opponent’s goal. The action was excellently accompanied by Kaspar Strugar, who scored an try for 10-0.
Already after a few minutes, precisely at 15th minute of the match, it is the turn of the excellent defense of the Eagles, who put a lot of pressure on the flow of the ball and on the opponent’s attack. From one such ruck Serbia wins the ball and pulls off a quick counterattack. The ball comes to Mađanovic, who ties the defender to himself and makes a quick pass to captain Velibor Sreckovic, who gives a pass inside to Predrag Keglic, who had no difficulty placing the ball under the post. Nikola Stanković is confident in the transformation for 17-0.
And then at 28th minute of the match saw one of the most beautiful actions in the game. Keglić picks up the ball from the scrum from the position of the stopper, ties the opponent’s third line for himself, then feints a fake pass with Stanković and passes a quick ball to the center line, where Matijašević passes to Aleksandar Đorđević who employs Strugar who runs into the space and scores an try. Stankovic is secure again in the conversion for 24-0.
Towards the end of the half, Serbia’s lightning-quick and organized game was seen again. From our scrum in our half of the field, the action develops towards Matijašević, who broke through the opponent’s defense line. The Montenegrins managed to stop him on the 22-meter line, then our scrum, which followed the action excellently, made two quick phases in the middle of the field and grouped the opposing players around them. Then Avramović fires a quick ball towards Mađanović, who launched himself into the space at high speed, neutralized the opponent with a buffer and scored a try for Serbia. Stanković is safe again from the transformation. Match referee Andrei Gheorghe blows at the end of the half with Serbia leading 31-0.
In the second half, the rhythm did not drop
Again the action from the lineout was fruitful. In 46th minute the ball comes out of the car quickly, there is an excellent action where the centers are skipped and Strugar cuts in from the closed wing and creates an action for Igor Dejanović, who wins the space with lightning penetration, then Đorđević makes another phase, from where Avramović passes the ball to Strugar who and returns it to him with an offload, where Avramović buys the ball like a bullet and scores an try for 36-0 with an unstoppable penetration.
Already at 49th minute we saw how a positional attack is being built nicely. We had a scrum in the center of the field, the ball comes to Stanković, who passes to Dejanović with a quick pass, who again breaks through the opponent’s defense line and forms a ruck on the line 22 meters from the goal line. Then another phase is made to group the opposing players, a quick ruck and an attack on the same side created an opportunity for Stanković who had a 2 on 1 situation with Strugar, to whom the opposing player connected, which allowed Stanković to score try. Avramović was confident in the shot for 43-0.
Halfway through the second part of the match, we saw an excellent individual action by the debutant Antoine Jovovic who, after the opponent’s shot, started a counter attack with a tactical shot, then knocked down the opponent who had the ball in front, where we got a scrum ten meters from the Montenegro try zone. The ball came out of the scrum to Stanković, who withstood duels with two players from Montenegro and scored another try. Avramović did not have a difficult task and successfully executed the shot for 50-0.
Try zones were dormant until 74th minutes, when Serbia again developed a good attack from the outside. The ball came to Stefan Đorđević who scored an try. However, the judge canceled the try and returned the sentence to Serbia for 5 meters from the tryline. Matijašević uses the opponent’s weak setup and sends a fast ball to Ivan Voštić, who in a 1-on-1 game ran over the opponent and scored for 55-0.
Coach Michel Milović can be satisfied with the lineout, because another goal from the car was scored. After the out, the ball comes to Jovović, who sees the space in the opponent’s defense very well and puts pressure on the opponent with a grab shot. To everyone’s surprise, the opposing player in a panic kicks the ball towards our players, which Ivan Rodić catches and forms an organized attack with Martic. Then Matijašević passes the ball to Nemanja Stošić who passes inside to Vladimir Đukić who scores an try. Avramović successfully converted the shot for a final score of 62-0.
Match information
Result: Serbia – Montenegro 62-0 (31-0)
Date: 08.10.2022
kickoff: 14:00h
Venue: King Peter I stadium, Belgrade
Spectators: 550
Match replay: European rugby federation
Main refferee: Andrei Gheorghe (Romania)
Conference 2 south: Table, results
Serbia squad:
Boris Martić, Vladimir Djukić 5, Predrag Vraneš, Aleksandar Krstić, Relja Pećanac, Aleksandar Madjanović 5, Alen Ćosović, Predrag Keglić 5, Aljoša Avramović 11, Nikola Stanković 16, Velibor Srećković, Aleksandar Đorđević, Žulijen Matijašević 5, Kaspar Strugar 10, Igor Dejanović, Stefan Đorđević, Boško Jovanović, Dušan Jocić, Nemanja Stošić, Ivan Voštić 5, Antoan Jovović, Bojan Čečarić, Ivan Rodić.
Captain: Velibor Srecković
Headcoach: Michel Milović
Team doctor: Srđan Nikolić
Team doctor: Enes Isaki
7 takeaways
Dominant scrum
We had a completely expected dominant scrum. We won a few balls from the opposing scrum. However, we did not take full advantage of our opportunities. We could have pushed more into the scrum and in that way won penalties from which we would have won space with a kick out. On the other hand, by pushing, we were able to influence the opponent to get a yellow card. Something similar happened to us when we play against Bosnia and Herzegovina, which did not take advantage of chances from the scrum against us. Perhaps there was no need for that, since the game was already decided after twenty minutes, but the opportunity could have been used to practice and prepare such actions for the game against Turkey.
Aggressive defense
Maybe it is not noticeable despite all these scored points, but the defense was at an extremely high level. Special mention should be made of the scrum players who fought and were aggressive throughout the match, which led to the fact that the opponent did not have a single opportunity to score points. We have to single out the second line that did an excellent job, the young Relja Pećanac, the experienced Aleksandar Krstić and Dušan Jocić who came on in the second part of the match, who did a fantastic job.
Too many technical fouls and penalties
The result could have been much higher if we didn’t have a large number of technical errors, dropped balls and penalties. When we look at the result it shouldn’t matter, but we must not be lulled into a convincing victory. There were occasions when ours broke through the opponent’s defense, or caught a difficult shot, so they made a move more in the form of an offload. You need to calm down the game, when you get into a good situation, you can always form a ruck, set an offside line for the opponent and wait another phase or two to score an try. You have to be disciplined, we have nothing to talk about with the opponents, even less with the referee. Discipline wins games.
Lineoput efficiency
A lot of the actions we developed from the lineouts were converted into points. We can say that the performance of the car was up to the task. But we have to point out that we didn’t really have much resistance and that we lost a couple of balls. We won a lot of balls, so our overall rating can be excellent. You can clearly see Milović’s influence on the game and the setup from the lineouts, and we like that very much. We can’t wait to see how we fare against Turkey next weekend.
Mobile third line
We can admire how much the players of the third line ran in this match, both in defense and in attack. Madjanović, Keglić, Ćosović and later Martić were extremely lethal on both sides of the field. They put a lot of pressure on the opponent’s defense, where they made the most of it and created space. Ćosović had the task in the first part of the match to throw in an out, so we can freely say that every task that was put before them was absolutely fulfilled.
Fast game and high tempo
In the announcement of the match itself, we said that fast play and fast tempo win matches and that Montenegrins will have trouble defending it. That’s how they turned out in the end. It is difficult to defend against high tempo if your defense is not used to such matches. The pace simply breaks you down and it’s just a question of when the defense will give in at some point. We have nothing to complain about Montenegro, they fought as hard as they could, but it is evident that they are missing games. When we look only at the players who dictated the pace for us, namely Avramović, Stanković, Đorđević, Matijašević, Keglić…much stronger opponents would not have had a chance.
Rugby audience in Belgrade
The Serbian national team rewarded the numerous rugby audience that came to watch them in Belgrade. A wonderful day of rugby at the Kralj Petar Prvi stadium was used to the best advantage. Young players had the opportunity to see our team play at a high pace, older players had the opportunity to talk about how the best rugby was played in their time. We are most pleased that a large number of former rugby players brought their children to watch rugby, and we are pleased that there is much more talk about rugby again.
