What will the new competition system look like?
Although it was announced that the current groups will be locked for two years, the competition system in Conferences 1 and 2 has changed again. It seems really incredible that every year various changes are introduced and that new competition formats are constantly being changed and invented. Which can be very inconvenient for National Associations to make long-term and even medium-term plans. And now imagine you make a financial plan at the beginning of the year, you can guess in relation to the results in which group you will play and who the opponents are. And then in June they tell you that you are going to Moldova. And you could not count on that because the Moldovans were in the northern part of the competition.
The European Rugby Federation designed this way of competition to save money. Their plan is to play regionally as much as possible, to avoid long trips that can be quite expensive for everyone. And the European Rugby Federation donates funds to the Unions, where it participates in covering part of the expenses for visiting. The same applies to the expenses of referees and match comissionnaires. From that point of view, it is very logical to make such a decision. But rugby is not football, the differences between the levels are quite big. In football you beat San Marino 4-0, in rugby you can lose convincingly 100-0. The difference is huge, and in our opinion, this is the biggest drawback of this format.
Let’s not drown too much and get down to business. They combined all the teams in Conference 1 and 2 and created four new groups according to the regional principle. Some idea is that the group winners play a playoff at the end of the competition to fill the Trophy group. But we still don’t have exact information on how the playoffs will look like, whether all the top-ranked teams from the four groups will play the first ½ final, and then the final. In general, we will have to wait for that information to be officially announced by the European Rugby Federation.
According to that regional principle, four groups were created:
Group A: Latvia, Finland, Denmark, Norway and Andorra.
Group B: Hungary, Luxembourg, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia and Austria.
Group C: Serbia, Moldova, Montenegro, Turkey and Bulgaria
Group D: Cyprus, Israel and Malta.
In our group, Montenegro decided to withdraw from the competition, and to continue its competition in the development group, which is understandable, because we do not see the purpose of Moldova, which lost to the Czech Republic 39-13 away from home, while the Czechs qualified into the Trophy group as the best team from both Conference 1, the game against Montenegro, which was in the lower part of Conference 2 south. When we have official information and the schedule of matches, we will create a special section on the website.
Before the withdrawal of Montenegro, the idea was that each national team would play 4 games. With the fact that it would be played in a round robin in the Group where Israel, Malta and Cyprus are.
How strong is our group?
Moldova
Our group is extremely playful. After a long time, we will again have the opportunity to cross spears against Moldova, once a very frequent rival. The Moldovans have a very strong team and when all the players come together they automatically become group favorites. Now they have a very good schedule because they will host both Serbia and Bulgaria, where they will have the absolute home field advantage. And we note that they are especially motivated when they play at home, among other things, all players who play abroad like it much more when they play home matches.
The history of matches with Moldova is quite interesting. The first match was played against them on April 2, 2000. in Belgrade, when we won with a score of 17-3, where Poprečica and Jakišić scored essays for us, and Grujić converted and scored a penalty. In the next match in Chisinau on October 20, 2001. The Moldovans won against us with a score of 36-16. Tries for Serbia were scored by Posrkača and Golubović, while two penalty kicks were successfully executed by Prijić. In the next away match, we drew 17-17, also in Chisinau on May 24, 2003 . The try for Serbia was scored by Grbić, while Milošević successfully converted and took 3 penalty kicks.
In Pancevo on May 8, 2004. године we experienced a defeat at home, when the Moldovans beat us with a score of 43-20. The try for Serbia was scored by Labus, while Matejić had 5 successful penalty kicks. And that was the last meeting of the senior teams. So, one win, one draw and two defeats are our score with Moldova, so far.
If we were to analyze the game of the Moldovans, we can say that they have a very good scrum. The same thing as with us, it all depends on what kind of foreign players they will get for the match with us. But for you to be quite dominant in pushing against the Czech Republic, that is already a very serious level. And a big potential problem for our scrum, which in the recent past had problems with both the Bulgarian and Bosnian scrum. If we want to have the ball, we must adequately respond to the challenge.
They play very fast, they have a lot of good linemen of all generations who play at a very high rhythm. We have to draw special attention to Adrian Adam, who plays fullback. Adrian plays in the Italian Serie A for Casale Rugby. An extremely fast and penetrating player, he has fantastic timing which he combines with speed and excellent positioning. Also, he is the primary kicker and needs to be disciplined and not allow scoring chances.
If we want to be competitive, we must first of all be disciplined, smart and ready. We must respond to challenges in statics and be concentrated in defense. The Moldovans are not invincible, but if we want to make a surprise away from home, we must have a very strong team and be extremely motivated.
Bulgaria
Since Roman Balmis took over the helm of the senior Bulgarian national team, he has completely changed not only the course but also made a huge impact on the rugby culture. The enormous positive change had a great impact on the fact that Bulgaria went from playing in the Development group to second place in Conference 1 North. An incredible series of victories was created, where they were even better against us three times in a short period of time, so we can say that we are their regular customers.
However, it was not always like that. If we take the results from 1996. године, when we started playing international games again, we had a lot more success. The first match with Bulgaria after the lifting of sports sanctions was in Gabrovo, on May 18, 1996. године, where we celebrated with a score of 39-9. Tries for us were scored by Vučićević, Grujić, Leskovar and Cukanić, while Grujić hit 6 shots from penalties and conversions after the try. The next match took place on April 30, 2000. in Pernik, where we were again better with a score of 33-6. Đukić and Pejović then scored tries, while Jelić hit 8 shots, including 7 penalty kicks. In the same year, we hosted the Bulgarians and won convincingly with a score of 46-6. The match was played in Dimitrovgrad and goals were scored for us by Grujić, Labus and Poprečica. Kapor and Grujić hit the conversions, while Kapor had 5 successfully executed penalties. The next match was played in 2004. where in Belgrade, at the SC Kosutnjak stadium, we celebrated with a score of 33-10. Tries for Serbia were scored by Poprečica, Kapor, Vukanović, Milosavljević, Matejić and Pešić, where Vukanović had a successful penalty.
We haven’t played a match against each other for quite a long time, almost 15 years. The next match was scheduled for the 13th. October 2018 at the Kralj Petar Prvi stadium in Belgrade. The Bulgarians won 35-29. Tries for us were written by Krstić, Ljubičić, Đorđević and Kapor. While it was Kapor and Andrić who succeeded in converting after the tries. After exactly one year, they experienced a huge debacle in Sofia, where the Bulgarians convincingly defeated us with a score of 71-7. We performed much better on 16.10.2021. in Sofia, when we were defeated again with a score of 14-11. The national team recovered and played a fantastic game, where we almost beat the favored Bulgaria in a game where no one expected it. Ćosović scored the try for us, while Andrić successfully executed two penalties.
Bulgarians play quite fast and at a high tempo. If you leave them a lot of space, you won’t have a good time. A key player for us is Petar Nikolov, who is also the captain, as well as the team’s primary shooter and playmaker. A lot depends on his play in the Bulgarian team. The product of Balkan Cats from Berkovica is a true example of a team leader who loves responsibility and almost always makes good decisions.
We showed how to play against Petr and Bulgaria in the last match. We put enormous pressure on the Bulgarian attack line, while on the other side we fantastically covered the field from shots. If possible, it is necessary to exert pressure so that the ball can reach the other center as much as possible, because we must not allow them to have an unhindered flow of the ball. The absolute thing that must accompany the pressure is the play against the shooting of our wings and defenders. Also a very important player is Ivailo Ivanov, who is an extremely penetrating player who loves to attack from the field, that is, from the second plan. If we manage to shut down Bulgaria’s fast ball flow, we will shut down Ivanov and Nikolov as well. Also, we have to be disciplined and avoid making penalties in our part of the field. Nikolov is capable of hitting a half-court shot.
The Bulgarians are in their debt, and I owe them quite a bit, and it’s always a good opportunity to get revenge on them for the last three defeats. We believe that we can really handle them and that it is only necessary to work patiently and build a team.
Turkey
Definitely the weakest team in our group, but a team that has huge potential to make huge progress. In the previous meetings, we won all three times with bonus points. No match against them was easy, we had to work a lot on the field in order to get a positive result.
The Turks play quite a free rugby 15, it looks totally chaotic and disorganized, and this way of playing can sometimes confuse the opponent. They have extremely ready players, both in the line and in the scrum. We could see most of the players at the rugby sevens tournament in Belgrade, which they won without defeat, and they pretty much destroyed us, so let’s be gentle in the assessment of that match. However, they can’t seem to find a way to match when the rugby 15 is played. Any team that is disciplined, that sticks to the game system in defense and attack, and that leaves Turkey without possession of the ball will try beat them. If you have a good defense in the field and a good counterattack, then you won’t have any problems.
Game schedule
October 7, 2023 Moldova – Serbia
April 13, 2024 Serbia – Turkey
April 20, 2024 Bulgaria – Serbia
The European Rugby Federation should publish information on where the matches will be played, as well as what time they will start.
What is the range of Serbia?
It is very difficult to say because the results depend a lot on how complete we will be and how complete the other teams will be. What is definitely not going our way is the schedule, because we are playing away from home against Moldova and Bulgaria. If they could achieve two victories in this cycle, we believe that they would achieve an excellent result.
An opportunity to move up the World Rugby Federation rankings
If you want to move up in the ranking, it is best to beat a higher-ranked away team, preferably by more than 15 points. We have tried to explain in our article how points are calculated in the ranking list, so you can see here. We believe that this is the best opportunity for a big improvement, because we can win a lot of points. In any case, we will make an article on this topic very soon.
