Poland are now second in the men’s Rugby Europe Trophy table after they battled hard to win away to Czechia on Saturday while there was a first victory of the campaign for Croatia versus Lithuania on the same day.
Seven days previously, Poland had won their first match in the event for 2024/25 40-13 at home to Lithuania, but knew a trip to Czechia would be tougher.
And so it proved, Poland just coming out on the right side of things 22-15 in the Marketa Stadium in Prague after a late winning try.
Wojciech Piotrowicz, the stand-off, kicked an early penalty to put Poland 3-0 up before Czechia missed one of their own.
However, Czechia went 5-3 up in the eighth minute when full-back Tristan Horak scored an unconverted try and then stand-off Martin Cimprich kicked a penalty in the 20th minute to make it 8-3 to the hosts.
Two penalties from Piotrowicz then gave Poland a slender 9-8 lead at half-time.
Poland got off to a dream start in the second half when Piotrowicz kicked a fourth penalty and then Czechia lost a man to the sin bin.
While the home side were down to 14 men, Piotrowicz kicked another penalty, but by the time they were back to 15 Czechia were just seven points down and still in the game.
With 14 minutes to go, Poland then lost a man to the sin bin and, with four minutes left. just as he was coming back on, Czechia struck with a try from winger Adam Koblic and a conversion from Cimprich which levelled things up at 15-15.
The contest looked like it might end in a draw, but right at the death replacement Szymon Sirocki grabbed the winning try with Piotrowicz converting to make it 22-15 as Poland celebrated.
As mentioned, they are second in the standings now with two wins from two behind leaders Sweden and Czechia are in third.
Lithuania are fourth, but they were on the wrong end of a 32-23 defeat in Croatia at the weekend which has moved the latter, in fifth, four points clear of bottom side Luxembourg albeit they have played two more matches.
In the NSC Stjepan Spajic in Zagreb, after previous defeats to Czechia and Sweden, Croatia were determined to win in front of their home crowd.
They were 15-8 down until a converted try levelled things up at 15-15 just before half-time and that seemed to give them confidence.
By the hour mark the home side led 22-18 and with 10 minutes to go that lead was 25-18.
A crucial converted try then came 60 seconds later before a late unconverted effort from Lithuania who contributed a lot to the game but ended up on the wrong end of the 32-23 scoreline.
Croatia will play the last Trophy game to play before the competition takes a winter break. They team will travel to Luxembourg where they will play their fourth game in Trophy this season.
Luxembourg v Croatia will be live on Saturday 30th November at 6.00pm CET.
