On Saturday in Lisbon, Romania secured a dramatic 28-27 win against
Portugal in the second leg of the Rugby Europe Championship. The Romanians
managed to win in the last minutes of a game when they had been dominated all
the time. Alexandru Savin scored the first try for the Romanian side in the 49th
minute; Nicolas Onutu added a second in the 74th minute and Ovidiu
Cojocaru scored a third on 79 minutes. Daniel Plai converted the last two tries
while Florin Vlaicu converted three penalty shots on minutes 4, 21 and 34. The
Romanian side is to play Spain in Bucharest next week.
The 2021 and 2022 editions of Rugby Europe Championship are counting
towards qualification for the World Cup due in France in 2023. Under the
regulations, the first two sides in the ranking are directly qualified for the
final tournament whereas the team on the third position will play a tie
game.
Let’s move on to handball now, as Romanian women’s side CSM Bucharest
will be up against Russian side CSKA Moscow in the quarterfinals of the
Champions League. CSM lost to SCM Ramnicu Valcea in Bucharest on Saturday 21-27
but won on aggregate after a 33-24 victory in the first game. The Russians
secured an aggregate win against Krim Mercator Ljubljana of Slovenia.
In men’s competitions, the selection of Kosovo obtained an unexpected
30-25 win against the Romanian national handball side in Group 8 of the second
round of the European Championship preliminaries. Sweden ranks first in the
group with 6 points out of three games followed by Romania and Kosovo with 3
points out of 4 games. Montenegro comes 4th with 2 points out of 3
games. The first two sides in each group as well as the four best sides on the
third position are qualified for the final tournament.
Last weekend saw the football games counting towards the 27th
leg of Romania’s first league championship. On Friday in Medias, Universitatea
Craiova clinched a 2-0 win against local side Gaz Metan. On Saturday, FC
Voluntari secured a 1-0 away win against Academica Clinceni whereas the match
pitching Hermannstadt against Viitorul Constanta ended in a goaless draw. FCSB
obtained a 1-0 win against UTA Arad.
On Sunday, Astra Giurgiu won 1-0 against Chindia Targoviste in Buzau
while CFR Cluj obtained a 4-0 home win against Poli Iasi. Monday will see two
games: FC Botosani versus Sepsi Sfantu Gheorghe and Dinamo Bucharest versus FC
Arges. FCSB and CFR are topping the table each with 60 points followed by
Craiova seven points less.
(bill)