The ‘Lions’ beat Poland, Lithuania and Italy in the group stage
They fell in the last game against Portugal after a horrible second half
The Spanish rugby 7 team will play this Sunday one of the semi-finals of the Krakow tournament (Poland), second and last stage of the European Championship, after in the group stage chained victories against Poland, Lithuania and Italy before losing to Portugal.
The Polish hosts were the first opposition for Spain at the Henryk Reyman stadium, where Juan Martínez opened the scoring by taking a penalty kick from five meters to himself and Javi de Orbaneja starred in a tremendous debut with the ‘seven’ teamas he scored three trials in the next four minutes.
Paco Cosculluela and Francisco Soriano increased the Spanish advantage with two marks in the second half before Poland covered up their defeat in the final minutes by essays by Patrick Chain and Igor Patek (38-12).
Lithuania raised to the ‘Lions’ more difficulties than expected, since he responded quickly to the first two handicaps, with a brace from Jerry Davoibaravi, with transformed essays by Kestutis Karbauskas and Matas Miezys that gave the Baltics a minimal advantage at the break (12-14).
In the second period, the Spaniards were much more rigorous in defense and took advantage of the rival’s losses to take the game thanks to two essays by Juan Martínezvery active in taking advantage of the spaces at the level of the groups (24-14).
The speed of Tobías Sainz-Trápaga decided the duel against Italy in the first half, as the Spanish-Argentine striker scored a brace: after surround the transalpine defense in the first test and when picking up a follow-up kick from his brother Manuel in the second (14-0).
A lovely one-handed download by Richard Palletta released Alessandro Forcucci, who opened the scoring for Italy at the start of the second period, but his try was not converted nor was Francesco Bonavolontà converting his own last-minute score, so the triumph fell on the Spanish side (14-10).
In the duel for the leadership of the group, Portugal went ahead a minute into the game through Joao Antunes, who beat the entire Spanish defense in speed, although the ‘Lions’ responded with three consecutive marks by Tobías Sainz-Trápaga, Jerry Davoibaravi and Tiago Romero who seemed to resolve the clash at halftime (19-5).
Nevertheless, Spain perpetrated a horrible second half in which he got rid of the oval with pointless kicks, which allowed José Paiva and Francisco Meneres to put the Portuguese within range a comeback culminated by Rodrigo Freudenthal with a fifty-meter race after stealing with a Spanish introduction (19-26).