Czech Republic national rugby league team

The Czech Association of Rugby League (CZARL) began life in early 2006, under the guidance of former Czech rugby union international Milan Mrtýnek and Englishman Iain Sellers.

The squad's first training session, in February 2006, was held in an indoor basketball hall because of an extremely fierce Czech winter. From these modest beginnings, the Czech Republic team, with support from the Rugby League European Federation, struggled to play four full games in their debut season.

Perhaps inevitably, given the unfamiliarity of the game, the Czech Republic lost all four matches, and the margins of defeat were not narrow. The Czechs played their first two games against the touring British Student Pioneers team. A 29–2 loss in Prague was followed by a less encouraging 34–2 defeat in Olomouc.

This was followed by the first away trip to Rotterdam to face the Netherlands Tasman team, where the newcomers were narrowly defeated 34–28. In their final game of the season, also in Prague, the Czechs were beaten 36–28 by Serbia, in the inaugural "Slavic Cup" match between the two countries.

In 2007 The Czech Republic played in the European Shield tournament against the Germany and Serbia. This saw them travel to Belgrade to play Serbia and Germany travelled to Prague. Both games were lost. The Serbia game doubled again as a Slavic Cup match. In 2008 the Czech Republic team once again competed in the European Shield along with Italy and Germany, with a domestic competition in u16, u18 and Senior level.

In 2011, the Czech Rugby League Association was admitted to affiliate membership of the Rugby League European Federation after reforming its governance.^[1]

The following is a summary of tournaments and results for the Czech Republic National Rugby League Team.

• Rugby league in the Czech Republic