Czechia vs Ukraine, rugby league: where to watch the broadcast

18 October 2024 12:15

Ukraine’s national men’s rugby league team will play a friendly but ranking match against the Czech Republic today.

The match will take place in Letohrad, Czech Republic, at the stadium of a local football club, at 16:45 Kyiv time. Admission is free.

The day before, the Rugby League Federation published a video of the Ukrainian national team.

The Czech national team is approximately the same class as the Ukrainian national team, so the match should be interesting.

Dress rehearsal

The match between the Ukrainian national team and the Czech national team is a dress rehearsal for one of the most important matches in the history of the Ukrainian national rugby team. On 22 October, the mini-qualifying tournament for the 2025 World Series will begin in Carcassonne, France. Four European teams will take part in this tournament: France, Serbia, Wales and Ukraine.

on 22 October, Ukraine will play France and Serbia will play Wales. The winners of these pairs will play in the final on 26 October.

The winner of this European qualifying mini-tournament will have the opportunity to play in the 2025 World Series, where there will be three other teams: Cook Islands, Jamaica and South Africa. These 4 teams, in turn, will play for the last two tickets to the Rugby World Cup, the most prestigious tournament in the world.

So, the Ukrainian national team has the opportunity to compete for participation in the World Cup. At first glance, our team looks like an outsider in the European qualifying tournament, as it has the lowest ranking among the 4 teams. Thus, Ukraine is ranked 20th in the world rankings, while its semi-final opponent, France, is eighth in the world, and Serbia and Wales are ranked 11th and 17th respectively. And among the future participants of the World Series, only South Africa is currently ranked lower than Ukraine in the world rankings.

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However, it is worth saying that Ukraine should not predict an ignominious failure. After all, this time the Ukrainian Rugby League Federation surprised with some achievements. The fact is that the Ukrainian national team will now include not only Ukrainian citizens playing in Ukrainian semi-professional clubs, but also Ukrainians of Ukrainian descent who play in clubs in the leading rugby countries of England and Australia. There are seven such players in the Ukrainian national team’s application, which is more than half of the team on the field. Therefore, the strength of this Ukrainian team is still unknown and the Ukrainian team may be a surprise for the opponents.

The composition of the national team of Ukraine:

Tim Knight (Caloundra Sharks), Daniel Janissen (Cardiff Cobras), Jonah Ngaronoa (Glebe Dirty Reds), Yevhen Checheta, Yevhen Davydov, Anatolii Grankovskyi, Volodymyr Karpenko, Vitalii Puchkov, Dmytro Semerenko, Oleksandr Shcherbyna, Oleksandr Skorbach, Oleksandr Syvykoz, Mykhailo Troyan, Yevhen Trusov, Volodymyr Voitov (Kharkiv Legion XIII), Valentyn Korchak, Ostap Kozak (Lviv Tigers), Viktor Teresko (Queanbeyan Blues), Danilo Vedler (Rivne Giants), Brock Jurkans (Singleton Greyhounds), Tigris Polata (Southern Suburbs Magpies), Tom Menchinski (Sydney University RLFC).