German Rugby

[Black Hawk]

It has been confirmed that the Black Eagles' third game in the group stages of the 2023 Rugby Europe Championship against The Netherlands on Saturday 18th February (ko 13:15) will be held in Neckarsulm. The venue for the opening game on 4th February in Georgia has yet to be announced. A three-day training camp will be held for the 32-man national squad in Heidelberg from January 13th to 15th. A further nine players are on-call.

 

[Groundhog]

Very strong 1880 contingent in that German squad. I trained with them a couple times (literally only twice) and they have a very decent setup and a good youth section with a load of international kids involved because of where they're based in Frankfurt.

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

Major wobbles from the German union this year. They had to withdraw from Euopean age grade and women's fifteens.

RUGBY DEUTSCHLAND - News

RUGBY DEUTSCHLAND - News

www.rugbydeutschland.org

Just a few years ago German players were being bankrolled by the billionaire owner of Capri Sun with Germany developing so fast that qualification for RWC2023 wouldn't have been unthinkable. But he and the German union could not reach agreement on a way ahead and so the German union retained control and appear to be running the sport into the ground. Gotta love rugby unions and their obsessive control over tiny empires.

 

[munichblue]

It really is a shame that rugby played in Germany gets so little attention and is therefore permanently underfunded. If there is not enough money available for the juniors to participate in the European competitions, then it is no wonder that the sport cannot be developed in the country.

At the same time, the RWC is currently receiving an unusually high level of attention and extremely positive coverage in many media. But somehow this momentum can't be used enough in Germany.

 

[Bruce_ma gooshvili]

It really is a shame that rugby played in Germany gets so little attention and is therefore permanently underfunded. If there is not enough money available for the juniors to participate in the European competitions, then it is no wonder that the sport cannot be developed in the country.

At the same time, the RWC is currently receiving an unusually high level of attention and extremely positive coverage in many media. But somehow this momentum can't be used enough in Germany.

The German union is up there with Canada as one I would not trust to be able to step through an open door. Hopefully they can balance the books and then in the medium term pursue funding for a team in the Rugby Europe Super Cup. That is the only hope in hell of retaining your best players once they are beyond 22/23 years of age and looking for careers.

But I'd be lying if I said it was anything but extremely difficult for a union in Europe to steer a path towards improvement if you don't have a bunch of players eligible through ancestry playing in top professional leagues (like a Portugal or Spain).

Even a union that seems somewhat competent, like Poland, is really struggling to find the funds to create a team for the RESC. Sponsors are simply not interested in tournaments and teams that do not have access to higher levels of the sport. For example, they can't even give away the Scottish Super Series and it is of an okay standard.

The only hope is that the winner of the RESC can be promoted to the Challenge Cup (possibly a one off this year) and that that proves attractive to sponsors of both tournaments. But I can't see it happening.

Germany could gamble on popularising the sport via 7s, but I have yet to see any connection between success at 7s and success in XVs.

 

[Herman the German]

Germany could gamble on popularising the sport via 7s, but I have yet to see any connection between success at 7s and success in XVs.

If you're Fiji it seems to work out fine. For Germany - less so. Being quite decent (in comparison to XV) in 7s and the sport being olympic means at least some federal funding,

Regarding XVs in Germany for now even Netherlands are above us. Not to mention Portugal making a huge step forward. Georga ofc. Then Spain and Romania. And Russia may also return from their ban some time on. Miles away from a world cup and no big spender in sight.