Emerging Nations Training Camp 2013, Zánka, Hungary

Austrian rugby union organizes every year Emerging Nations Training Camp for the smaller rugby nations around the Europe on Easter weekend. The Camp is focused to 7‘s rugby and the motto is: “Closing the Gap”. It started 8 years ago as a small action, but it grows every year and it is well established and very popular event now. This year it happened in Hungarian sport facility in Zánka on the side of the beautiful lake Balaton.

Every year there are coaches and referees from the big rugby nations and this year their “set” was really impressive:

Ivan Torpey, English coach and IRB / RFU High Performance Educator

Clare Daniels, referee and member of the International Rugby Board’s first Women’s Referee Panel

La Toya Mason, English coach and player

Tamara Taylor, English coach and player

Maggie “the Machine” Alphonsi, English coach and player, the best World female player of the year, the British sportswoman of the year and owner of the many more accolades

The Camp always starts on Thursday and ends on Sunday with tournament of all the participating teams.

This year the participants were:

Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, Romania, Croatia, Luxembourg and Slovenia. Austria, Hungary and Czech Republic had two teams for the tournament.

There were also the tournament U18 as well.

The teams were splitted to two pools according their abilities. The A pool of stronger teams was won by the Czech Team, which didn’t concede any single try for the whole tournament.

The B pool was won by the second Hungarian team, the Hungarian Barbarians.

The U18 tournament was won by Romania.

Complete standings:

U18’s
1. Romania
2. Czech Republic/Croatia
3. Hungary
4. Austria

Pool B
1. Hungarian Barbarians
2. Czech Barbarians
3. Luxembourg
4. Austrian Barbarians
5. Slovenia

Pool A
1. Czech Republic
2. Romania
3. Croatia
4. Austria
5. Hungary

The weather was very wet and freezing, even with some snow, which is very unusual in Hungary on Easter. But all the girls and their coaches were very happy with the whole Camp and this year’s ENTC was big success again.