Home 19/10/2024
It was a fine day for rugby, a bit wet and overcast but the pitch was still in a good condition despite the recent weather. Vorarlberg had nearly a full roster, 21 men and women ready to take on the combined forces of Ulm and Ravensburg. Previous encounters in this league have been hard fought and close affairs with Ulm/Ravensburg coming out on top 3 out of 4 times, so Vorarlberg were hoping to balance up the tally a bit. Unfortunately for the Ländle team it wasn’t to be this time with Ulm/Ravensburg winning 22-28.

Line-up
There were many changes from the previous game, in the forwards only hooker Thomas Correa Hucke maintained his position, some squad rotation saw props Sehan Arslan and Lukas Berger starting over Hans Tschohl who was suffering from illness through the week and Barnaby Caven who moved to the second row to partner Stefan Langer who took over from Alexander Kinz. In the back row we had one Italian out and another in as Patrick Sinner moved back from the second row while Giacomo Caldana had work obligations, the rest of the back row was made up by Manuel Bollgrün at 8, and skipper Johannes Cyrill, fit again, on the open side. Sebastian Kriftner not available and Críostóir Horan-Maybaum again helping the team with another position swap from number 8 to inside centre. Confused? So were we.
In the backs a bit more consistency, Oli Obrist continued at number 9 with Antonio Jardim at 10, Maximilian Berthold continuing at 13 joined by the versatile Irishman in the centres. It was all change however, for the back three, Christina Peter getting her debut, Yannick Egger and Henry Hammer were our 11, 14 and 15 respectively taking over from David Meier, Julian Mathis and Roman Engelbrecht. A strong bench was available to Vorarlberg with the player of the day at Bad Reichenhall, Steffi, last years club captain Roman Engelbrecht, power houses Pascal Knöpfel and Hans Tschohl and slow old man Tom Wright available in the 2nd half.

Lets go!
The game started as the previous encounters had, hard, tense and punch for punch. Early action saw Ulmsensburg take 3 points, and the Vorarlberg enforcer Stefan Langer take a knock to the head, so on 18 minutes the frankly, beautiful, Pascal Knöpfel took to the field, and a little rearrangement in the forwards ensued. Slightly disjointed the Vorarlberg team pushed on but it was RavUlmsburg that drew the first blood when their full back Daniel Kleb took advantage of a bit of space. The score was soon cancelled out as debutant Christina Peter went over in the corner. She has been an asset at training and is a well accomplished rugby player, adding a lot of experience and positive influence. We are very pleased that she decided to take the step to play in the male dominated league, and showed so early on what she can do!

First half score 5-8
The second half started badly for Vorarlberg, conceding a try in the first 2 minutes, some changes were made one old man for another, second row Barney Caven coming off and centre Tom Wright coming on with a reshuffle in the pack again. Further changes saw Prop Serhan leave the field as he had to attend a Tupperware party and Hans coming on having had his lemsip (Grippostad) and feeling 95% ready to go. There was a change at full back as well, Roman Engelbrecht had just finished his shift - content creating for SwissAir’s tiktok channel and had changed out of hit tutu and into his rugby shorts, so was ready to replace Henry Hammer who had marshalled the back field well. RavensUlm then settled themselves with another 3 pointer, before Roman and Tom linked up well from a scrum on our own 5 m line to run the full length of the pitch and put Vorarlberg within a score (10-16).

Unfortunately, Vorarlberg was not able to capitalise on the momentum and it was the Germans who extended their lead with another score finding a bit of room in the outside channels again. At this point the bench was emptied due to a few knocks on the field, Max, the Tirol loving Wälder going off for Marcos who had turned the energy levels up to 11, Steffi came on for Lukas hoping to push on from her performance two weeks previous, Luke was into his first beer before she had got her boots on finally Cris made a final position change to referee. With another new look to the Austrian bundesland Antonio took it on himself to pick up the next points carving up the Ulravens for a well take try, but still not bothering to hit the target with the boot (15-21). Rulm then made some more of their own changes bringing on Nathalie Treitlein one of the women that provided inspiration for our own women to get on the pitch, so it was nice to meet her on the field again, it also proved fruitful for Ravulensberg…m who were over again, this time after a silly penalty which had plagued Vorarlberg in this game, a quick tap and go from close range and a big German boy had breached the Austrian tryline again. This time the conversion was good and with 5 minutes to go Vorarlberg were looking at another game without scoring points on the league table at 15-28.

In the dying minutes Vorarlberg needed something, and something we had, in the form of our Kenyan bundle of energy Marcos Casmil Oduori. If Marcos can notch down the explosiveness and notch up the control he is the scariest man on the pitch, so when he came onto the ball at pace 20 m out there was no stopping him, the score under posts, and the conversion - well taken, got Vorarlberg the try bonus and losing bonus point which all thing considered was a fair out come from what is becoming a classic encounter against…. SG Ulm 1 / Ravensburg 1 (I think).

Reflection
Overall, a fun day but a disappointing result, we were not consistent enough or clinical enough, the coaches will take that on board, but we were happy to get many more bodies out there and the experience helps us grow. We gave away far too many penalties, even with the even-handed referee James who refereed brilliantly as usual, thank you James.

Thanks to all the players from both teams and the supporters for making another enjoyable rugby day happen.