For Romania’s
national rugby team, the international competition season 2021 has come to an end.
Romania completes the year on the 2nd position in Rugby Europe
Championship, with good chances to qualify straight into the 2023 World Cup to
be hosted by France. It is also ranking 15th in the World Rugby
standings, one place down from one of the 6-Nations tournament teams, Italy.
Romania played 3
matches this autumn. In a test match on November 7, in Verona, Italy, it
defeated Uruguay 29 – 14. Next came a postponed Rugby Europe Championship game,
on November 13 in Bucharest, against the Netherlands, which the Romanians won
with flying colours, 56 – 15. And finally, last Saturday Romania played against
Tonga, in Bucharest, and won 32 – 20.
This latest
victory against Tonga is all the more important, considering the position of
that team in the world rankings and the fact that Romania mostly used players from
the national championship. Tudor Butnariu and Florin Surugiu scored a try each,
both of them converted by Tudor Boldor, who also scored 2 penalty tries. Another
12 points were scored by Daniel Plai through penalty kicks, a performance for
which Radio Romania International has designated Daniel Plai the Athlete of the
Week.
Daniel Plai was
born on September 5, 1994, in Gura Humorului. He has been playing rugby since
the age of 7. His first team was the local School Sports Club, with which he
won Romania’s junior competitions. In 2013 Daniel Plai transferred to
Politehnica Iași, a team with which he joined the Super League, the top tier
Romanian rugby competition.
Since 2018 he has been a fly half for Steaua Bucharest,
and he made his debut in the national rugby team in 2016. (tr. A.M. Popescu)