The South (Bavaria/Bayern) caused a bit of a shock by beating the North (NRW, Hessen & Baden Württemberg) 58 -38 today in Nürnberg. Both teams featured a mix of experience guys, Players new to League and guys playing any form of Rugby for the first time. The South featuring just players who live or who are born in Bavaria/Bayern were not fazed by the more experienced Rugby Players from places like Heidelberg. Some strong running by man of the Match 19 year Old Michael Reinhold (Bad Reichenhall), Christian Gabriel (Nürnberg) and Jeremie Thierry (Nürnberg) helped build a good platform for the South to take an 12-0 lead. This woke the north up as Moritz Hottenrott (Baden Württemberg), Bene Rehm (Baden Württemberg) and Paul Szehofner (German Exiles) proved a handful and helped get the North back in to the game.
Sadly Max Schöngen (Hessen) who is studying in Oxford and has been playing for Oxford Cavaliers, Oxford Brookes and the German Exiles went off with a foot injury and Souths Peter Smutna (Nürnberg) also had to go off as he needed 4 stitches in a head wound.
But further tries to Michael Reinhold and with Michael Buttinger having his kicking boots on, saw the South go further in to the lead. The North responded with tries to Hottenrott and Szehofner but Joachim Frera (Hessen) failed to get the extras.
The kicking game of Simon Cooper (München/Munich) caused havoc in the ranks of the North and 3 further tries resulted and Buttinger kicking well saw the South take a big lead. The North fought back with Frera, Hottenrott, Rehm and Szehofner all making big contributions. However Reinhold finished off with another try- as did Jeremie Thierry and Buttinger added the extras. Young Backrower Reinhold finished with 5 tries and tackled his heart out and deservedly won the man of the match