After two seasons competing in Austrian championship and winning two titles Rugby club Ljubljana decided that renewed team is ready for new challenges and joined Regional rugby championship. Expectations before the season was mainly to test team among the best clubs from the region. Coach Andrew Fenton prepared the team very well and after winning the match against Nada from Split the team knew that they have a good chance of winning the title. RK Ljubljana have won the remaining three matches (RK Čelik, RC Donau and RT Sportex Belgrade) and and somewhat unexpectedly won the title.
It was a surprise for many but not for the coach Andrew Fenton:
“Like any team, we play each match believing we can win it – but for us the challenge over the past couple of seasons has more been about focusing on the quality of our performance, growing our game, knowing if we can play well, the wins will come.
We were extremely disappointed to lose our opening match against Dalmatia, more because of the level of our performance than the result itself.
The big lesson from that loss was that if we want to win at this level, we would have to develop our mental discipline, and maintain our concentration through every moment of every game – something that is still a work in progress, but the players are demanding more of each other, and more of themselves, and slowly we are growing up.
I’m immensely proud of the team, and it was such a huge honour for us all to win the cup – all the more so because of the quality of opposition, and the quality of rugby produced each week.
Like us, I think most, if not all the teams have a lot of young talent still learning their craft, and the competition is exactly what we needed to progress our game. To have the opportunity to play good teams every week, and be challenged by such different styles has been so enjoyable for us, and that can only be good for rugby right across the region.
We’ll look forward to next year, and we know already we will have to get a lot better to stay competitive as everybody pushes the bar a little higher.”
