The Athlete of the Week – Rugby player Florin Vlaicu

Romanias national rugby team this past Saturday ended its international fixtures schedule for 2014.

Florin Orban, 25.11.2014, 16:38

In Bucharest The Oak Leaf Knights in their last game of the season clinched a 18 — 9 win against Canada. It was the third test match Romania played this autumn. We recall that in its previous confrontations, Romania sustained a 27 –17 defeat at the hands of the United States and a 18-13 defeat against Japan.

Right after the game against Canada, the captain of Romania’s rugby team Mihai Macovei sounded buoyant because of the national team’s performance on the pitch: “It was a very well-organized game, with a Canadian line-up which was very good. Our win counted a lot, since it boosted our morale for next year’s World Cup match, when we will also be taking on Canada. Two wins in the last two years, that is crucial for the World Cup.”

And It was also next year’s World Cup game against Canada, to be played in England the Romanian Rugby Federation’s president Haralambie Dumitras had in mind: ”I hope we will be able to clinch yet another win since both the Romanian team and the Canadian one will be making progress in the meantime. I, for one, think that today we laid our hallmark for the upcoming World Cup fixture and I am happy for the players and I congratulate them. Let me just say thank you to all the people in my team, we had a lot of patience to carry on with our work and I believe we will be able to carry it through, with a lot of passion and a lot of dedication.”

In Saturday’s game, opening midfielder Florin Vlaicu scored all 18 points for Romania, converting a string of penalty kicks: ” I don’t think that matters toomuch. Let me say thank you to all my colleagues, they’ve been wonderful today and we showed we had loads of character. We played our first game against the USA, and we were not so good. We fared a little better against Japan, but we were defeated nonetheless and I said that at least the national team’s last fixture this season must mean a win and I should like to take this opportunity to say thank you to the boys.”

For the performance against Canada, Radio Romania International has designated rugby player Florin Vlaicu the Athlete of the Week.