Serbia v France

[Gomersall]

https://www.ffr13.fr/serbie-vs-france-a-belgrade-dimanche-24-septembre/

The French Rugby League team will start its 2023-2024 campaign at the end of September with a trip to Belgrade to face Serbia. Five years after their victory on Serbian soil in the preparatory match for the European Cup (victory 54-2), Les Bleus will return to the Slavic capital on Sunday, September 24.

Since the rebirth of its national team in the early 2000s, Serbia has met France four times from 2003. That year, the Habs then achieved a huge performance by winning on the score of 120 to 0 (with no less than 10 tries recorded by Fabrice Estebanez).

Since then, the Serbs have continued to progress by competing in particular with other emerging nations in Europe. In 2023, they even just rose for the first time in their history, to 10th place in the world, just ahead of Wales and behind France. Serbia remains on three consecutive successes against Greece (40-6), Italy (52-4) and recently the Czech Republic (28-16). The men of Laurent Frayssinous & Maxime Grésèque will therefore have to seek success in the fortified city to forget the disappointment against the English last April.

History of meetings

2003 • France 120 - 0 Serbia
2004 • France 18 - 4 Serbia
2015 • France 68 - 8 Serbia
2018 • Serbia 2 - 54 France

[Damien]

Very good. You'd expect a strong French victory but it will be interesting to see where Serbia stand.

[crashmon]

depends on what team France take over?

[ATLANTISMAN]

Saw this Dragons could have a match on 23rd going to check if i can fly out from Barcelona on the Sunday morning

 

P

[barnyia]

It'll be just elite 1 players. 

[Havenlad80]

Does Serbia pick any Australians of Serbian heritage?

[Gomersall]

33 minutes ago, Havenlad80 said:

Does Serbia pick any Australians of Serbian heritage?

Not very often. I remember them playing Wales and they had a couple of Aussies with Serbian heritage. They weren’t NRL players. One had appeared in the NRL Rookie reality TV programme.

[kiggy]

4 hours ago, crashmon said:

depends on what team France take over?

Considering Toulouse , catalans and Fév all have french nationals, I would think it's going to be an Elite or U19 team that goes

[langpark]

Two teams stuck in unfortunate positions. 

France: too weak for England, yet far too strong for the rest of Europe (unless heritage players are brought in).

Serbia: far too weak for France, yet a lot  stronger than everyone else around them (they beat Greece, probably their nearest rivals 40-6). 

I applaud the initiative but I do fear a massacre here. 

[LeytherRob]

14 hours ago, langpark said:

Two teams stuck in unfortunate positions. 

France: too weak for England, yet far too strong for the rest of Europe (unless heritage players are brought in).

Serbia: far too weak for France, yet a lot  stronger than everyone else around them (they beat Greece, probably their nearest rivals 40-6). 

I applaud the initiative but I do fear a massacre here. 

I do think this is a problem in the mentality when it comes to internationals in RL, particularly in the governing bodies. RU gets plenty massive blowouts at international level but they persist with it and teams eventually start to close the gap - prime examples being Italy and Georgia. In RL we try something, get a lopsided score and feel embarrassed with ourselves and immediately scrap it and look for short cuts to meaningful internationals such as the exiles concept. If tier 2/3 nations are ever going to close the gap we need them playing as many internationals against bigger teams as possible to give them the experience, and the opportunity to promote the game that is necessary for them to improve. 

 

I think what is most frustrating is that after 2013 and in the run up to 2017 it felt like we'd turned a corner on this, even having Wales v Serbia live on S4C in 2016 as part of the qualifiers. Since then all Northern Hemisphere international teams have gone backwards at a rate of knots.

[Damien]

14 hours ago, langpark said:

Two teams stuck in unfortunate positions. 

France: too weak for England, yet far too strong for the rest of Europe (unless heritage players are brought in).

Serbia: far too weak for France, yet a lot  stronger than everyone else around them (they beat Greece, probably their nearest rivals 40-6). 

I applaud the initiative but I do fear a massacre here. 

Serbia only beat the Czech Republic 28-16 last weekend.

[Gomersall]

1 hour ago, Damien said:

Serbia only beat the Czech Republic 28-16 last weekend.

With hardly any players from RSB.

[sam4731]

If this is even remotely close can we end the 'France can be a competitive option for England' rhetoric.

[Charlie]

34 minutes ago, sam4731 said:

If this is even remotely close can we end the 'France can be a competitive option for England' rhetoric.

No because this will just be elite 1 players?

[GeordieSaint]

Wales need to be getting involved in these types of games as well. 

[barnyia]

France play Wales in October I've read in the French paper today. 

[barnyia]

France need to play games to stay in the top 10, 

[Pen-Y-Bont Crusader]

37 minutes ago, barnyia said:

France play Wales in October I've read in the French paper today. 

Home or away for France ?

[RS]

Date? 

[Pie tries]

Any and every international is very welcome…

[barnyia]

21 or 22 October in France it says. 

[ATLANTISMAN]

2 minutes ago, barnyia said:

21 or 22 October in France it says. 

News to me

[barnyia]

In the independent, France need to play games to stay in the top 10, they play the 8th and 10th placed teams or something like that, Serbia will be elite 1 players or players not involve in the play offs, the Wales game may be a full French team, they have planned games for an elite 1 selection against the imports and a European select 

[Northern Eel]

Serbia seem like a team that we should be exposing to better teams as often as possible. They have a genuine, reputable league system and loads on potential on the international scene. They will get a few beatings, at times, no doubt, but I think they might have an internal infrastructure than can genuinely respond to that.

[langpark]

10 hours ago, Damien said:

Serbia only beat the Czech Republic 28-16 last weekend.

As I mentioned in the other post, it was a 2nd string Serbia team.