Well done to both our Mens Open and Mens 40s teams who recently returned from the European Touch Championships in Nottingham!
Check out the photo gallery added on our page and you can also see their results on the FIT website:
https://www.internationaltouch.org/events/euros/2018/
A huge thank you goes out to our sponsors – Luxnetwork, Pepsi, and RCL for making this possible. We’re already looking forward to the next Touch Euros in 2020, as we look to continue to improve and grow the awesome sport of touch in Luxembourg!
Men’s Open Report
Summary of day by day update from the Men’s Open lads who recently competed at the European Touch Championships in Nottingham from July 18-21st. Thanks to Coach Paul Sweetnam for the commentary 
Day two of four at the European Touch Rugby Champs in Nottingham. Heartbreak for Lux Men’s open as they lose 4-3 to Switzerland. Lux men’s over 40s beat Jersey and go into day three full of confidence, ice packs and strapping. Callum Trees, scores in a live streamed match to become , possibly, the youngest ever player to score in the European Men’s competition in the Luxembourg loss to Belgium 8-4, Jon Flynn is reffing despite painful injuries to all major pats of his body. Role on day three. Live stream on BBC website and YouTube.
Day three update at the Touch Rugby World Championships in Nottingham. The Luxembourg Men’s Open Team pulled off a surprise 8-5 win over Germany ( Ranked 3rd largest Car producer in the World). A massive shock briefly looked possible versus England when the score was 3-2… then England scored another 19!. The Men’s over 40s had a narrow 3-2 loss v Switzerland but produced a vintage performance to beat Portugal (11th largest wine producer in the world) 5-4. Jon Flynn, The World’s Largest Touch Rugby referee is getting stronger by the day and was last seen officiating the Ireland v Wales match. The Championships and the pain concludes tomorrow with matches versus Scotland and Italy. 10 matches in 4 days, well done boys your country is proud of you.
Final day update, Little Luxembourg were leading the world’s largest olive oil producer Italy in the both the men’s open and men’s 40s matches at half time only to lose in the dying seconds of each match. A lot of injuries on the final day including a broken wrist for our Kiwi Viking Sean “sharks” Howat. Great memories, friends for life made. 11 tries for boys 16 or younger in the men’s division. The future is bright.
Mens Over 40’s
On Day 1 the Mens over 40’s team had a tough start against Ireland, one of the strongest Touch nations and also lost to Belgium, but then beat Jersey 5-2 to record their first international victory in the Mens 40s division!
Day 2 was always going to be tough, playing France, Wales (reiging Champions) and England (favourites), all of whom had a significantly younger set of players. The side stuck to their task and made each of these teams work for their victories, doing particularly well against the French.
Days 3 & 4 saw the M40s play their last 4 games, the results of which were their 2nd tournament win over Portugal, and losing the other 3 games by only 1 point to Switzerland and Italy twice. In fact in their final play-off game against Italy at full-time the team had admirably held Italy to a 3-3 tie despite being down to only 10 players for the whole match. Whilst they tried their hardest they were unable to stop the Italians from scoring in the extra time drop-off and lost the game 4-3.
However a very proud performance overall by the M40s with over half the team being aged over 45 they gave it 100% against the other younger yet more experienced European teams, so placing 8th out of 10 countries was a great result for our Luxembourg old timers 🙂
