They are, I think.

Germany lost 26-32. Jimmy Keinhorst grabbed 3 for the Germans

Good to see close, competitive games in this tournament. Although I know you don't like the current Germany administration TLBC, it does seem like they have been able to make some advances on the field at least. I think most expected Germany would be blown away in their matches.

Problem for Germany is the Heritage players like Keinhorst, Seibold, Danzey are the spine (1,6,9) and Germany rely so much on them. Off the field things are poor and it will show likely in the away games where Germany will miss the Spine. Having had the Domestic comp rescheduled atleast twice this year and only so far just 3 games taking place including a training weekend then the German players are missing out on valuable education and game time. The biggest problem for Germany is the structure of the board. The President is a yound lad (24 years old) who lives in London most of the time. The Development Officer has NO clubs developed and just relies on bringing in Union players like Jens Schmidt and co. The board has only a couple of people who actually do anything and most are still active in Union including the Development officer. This is for me a major concern. Germany are way behind Czechs, Malta, Norway domestically but because they can call on quality heritage players who pay their own way even from Australia then the National team is very strong. But in reality it papers over the cracks. The sad thing is there are some top people who do many great things like Bene Rehm for example who gives everything and managed to stop the German RU president trying to move the game elsewhere. Its just a shame that he is not supported by the members of the board. The players deserve much praise and will have learnt alot this past 2 weeks especially regarding fitness and the big differences between League and Union

www.rlef.eu.com/european_shield/ ... LE00000299

www.rlef.eu.com/european_shield/ ... LE00000299

agree

Serbia 24 - 18 Italy



Ignoring the background and just taking this as a tournament alone, this must be one of the best contested international series' so far for a long time? 1pt, 6pt and 6pt victories? Brilliant.

Ooh, now you're in for it





Saw that result yesterday and couldn't believe it. Italy were supposed to walk this tournament with Germany light years behind the other countries. Love rugby league.

Second half highlights: www.webtv.rs/play/42950/ragbi-13 ... lija-24:18 Serbia were down 12-4 at half time.

Second half highlights: www.webtv.rs/play/42950/ragbi-13 ... lija-24:18 Serbia were down 12-4 at half time.

Quote headhunter="headhunter"Second half highlights: www.webtv.rs/play/42950/ragbi-13 ... lija-24:18 Serbia were down 12-4 at half time.'" Cheers, good comeback.

Quote headhunter="headhunter"Second half highlights: www.webtv.rs/play/42950/ragbi-13 ... lija-24:18 Serbia were down 12-4 at half time.'" Cheers, good comeback.

[url=http://www.rlef.eu.com/european_shield/report?RLE00000301Irresistible Italy rout Germany[/url

"A few people questioned whether Germany could play at this level and said we’d lose by blow-out scores in every match. Yes, this was a big score, but we’ve won one and were competitive with Russia so overall I’m pretty happy with the way 2012 went and looking forward to getting back into the competition next year."

- Germany coach Dan Stocks



Italy and Serbia both travel to Russia in September to complete the first half of the biennial competition





[url=http://www.rlef.eu.com/other/report?RLE00000405Under 18s a much tighter contest[/url

Russia 21 - 20 Serbia

with Serbia missing out on a penalty and fumbling a try scoring chance towards the end.



Russia top at halfway with 3 wins, 2 at home.

Italy second thanks to a rout over Germany despite 2 losses away.

Serbia 3rd with a win over Italy and two 1 point losses to Russia and Germany away from home.

Germany, after narrowly beating Serbia have fallen back slightly with a big loss against Italy putting them last place for now. May have a tough next year traveling to Russia and Serbia.



Interesting comp from what I can gather from the RLEF site