There’s more than one Rugby World Cup.
The Scotland Rugby League team pretty much clinched qualification for their 2021 World Cup with a dominant 86-0 win over Serbia in Glasgow on 26th October.
Scotland dominated the game from the start and with ten minutes gone they had run in five tries. Until then the only touches of the ball Serbian players had were when they kicked off. Things got better for the Serbs after that and by half time they’d forced Scotland to kick out from under the posts on two consecutive series and had one try scoring chance called back. There were no points for them though and by half time the score had stretched to 56-0. Scotland played against the strong wind after half time but still added another 30 points before the final whistle.
There were fifteen tries scored in total and among the scorers there were hat tricks for Batley’s David Scott who started his career with Glasgow club Easterhouse Panthers and Will Oakes of Super League’s Hull Kingston Rovers.
Scotland are playing in Pool B of the European play-offs for the World Cup. Their second game will be against Greece in London next Friday, 1st November. With the top two from the three team pool qualifying for the World Cup proper, the Scots are odds-on to be playing in England in 2021.
The head coach of the Scotland team is Nathan Graham who played in the team at the 2000 World Cup. He was very pleased with the performance of the Scottish domestic players who were mixing it with the professionals. Team captain Dale Ferguson commented on how good the dressing room culture was, even though many of the players hadn’t met before the preparations for this game. Both insisted that they were only just starting to think about the upcoming game against Greece.
Stuart Wilkinson, the head coach of Serbia, admitted his team had started and finished badly. However he wasn’t disheartened as his main target is a win over Greece in Belgrade in two weeks time. He added that he was very happy with the effort his players put in. His players from their domestic competition only get to play ten games a season and he’s confident that coaching and experience will bring big improvements.
Serbia are only playing in the pool as Russia, who’d originally qualified, pulled out. The Serbs are ambitious to progress in Rugby League in the future. Many of their players come from clubs with famous names, Red Star Belgrade and Partizan Belgrade, and they hope to have Red Star join the English and French teams, and Toronto, in the main European competition structure. In their first step, Red Star played in the first round of the 2019 Challenge Cup.
The Scotland team was:
Adam Walker (Salford), Davey Dixon (Keighley Cougars), David Scott (Batley Bulldogs), Ben Hellewell (London Broncos), Will Oakes (Hull KR), Callum Mclelland (Leeds Rhinos), Ryan Brierley (Toronto Wolfpack), Luke Douglas (St Helens), Danny Addy, (Hull KR), Adam Walker (Salford), Nick Glohe (Lakes United Seagulls), Ben Kavanagh (Halifax), Dale Ferguson (captain, Unattached)
interchanges – Matt Hogg (Edinburgh Eagles/Newcastle University), Dan Turland (Murwillumbah Mustangs), Kieran Moran (Keighley Cougars), Sam Luckley (Newcastle Thunder)
In the opening game in Pool A of the qualifiers Ireland, who performed famously at the 2017 World Cup in Australia, beat Spain by 40-8 thanks to a strong last twenty minutes. Italy are the third team in that group.
The 2021 Rugby League World Cup will be the sixteenth staging of the tournament. It will be held in England between 23 October and 27 November 2021.
UPDATE – Scotland’s qualification for the World Cup was confirmed when they defeated Greece by 42-24 in London on 1st November.