Can someone give a rundown of Serbian Rugby League?

[adamkungl]

The Balkan Super League has announced it's 3rd season will have 14 clubs from 8 countries(!!!), across 2 divisions.



Of particular note is the FIVE teams from Belgrade alone.

Has me wondering, can anyone give a thorough rundown of the Serbian Leagues? Clear information can be difficult to find.
The wikipedia pages are 7 years out of date. And the website is obviously in Serbian.

What I can figure out:
There's a
Serbian Championship
Serbian Super League
and Super Cup Serbia

What's the difference? What are the formats? What are the teams?

What I can figure out..
The Super Cup is an annual match between the 2 biggest clubs, Red Star Belgrade and Partisan Belgrade.

The Serbian Championship has 9 teams which play off in 3 groups to enter the Serbian Super League. Group A contains Red Star, Partisan, Dorcol and go through automatically. The remaining 6 teams in Groups B and C play off for the 4th spot in the top tier.
The 5 that miss out play in the 2nd League or B League.

Last year's top League was won by Red Star over Partisan, Dorcol and Nis.
B League features 3 more Belgrade teams (Red Kangaroo, Stari Grad, New Belgrade) and 2 more regional city teams (Paracin, Leskovac).

The Clubs listing on their website shows a lot more than 9 clubs but how they fit in im not sure.
There seems to be some movement in and out of the league among the lower places teams, unclear how or why.

 

[deluded pom?]

Drop Colin Kleyweg at RSB an email.

 

[deluded pom?]

There are two or three teams listed there that I’ve never heard if before i.e. Red Kangaroo, South Region Bar/Tivat and Lignano Sharks. Is Italy now classed as the Balkans?

 

[langpark]

You don't need to be strictly in the Balkans to participate. You will find no info on this new Italian team as they are a newly formed rep side in the region, I presume they will take players from Piacenza, Padova, Ducato etc. Many people may not know this, but in Italy, (except Saluzzo, who play year-round in French DN2 division), League is only played one month per year, but union teams in their off-season. So there is a real need to get more RL action there.

As for Serbia, last time I checked, there were 9 mens teams, 4 of them had youth sides (U19), and 3 had U16 (but only play in 9s tournaments). They are by far the leaders in the region. Greece has 5 men's teams, no youth and 2 women's. And Turkey are rapidly catching up to everyone, with 10 men's and 4 women's teams, but tend to only play a 2-3 month season, as they are all dual-code clubs.

 

[Pommy]

There are two or three teams listed there that I’ve never heard if before i.e. Red Kangaroo, South Region Bar/Tivat and Lignano Sharks. Is Italy now classed as the Balkans?

I don’t think Turkey is either but they’ve been in for a while.

 

[deal.with.it]

Serbia has a second division - of which Red Kangaroo is Red Star’s second division team.

I believe there is a Serbian Domestic League (for 1st grade, 2nd division, U19s, U16s etc), a Serbian 9s and the Balkan Super League.

The BSL is simply by application and not necessarily the best teams. Red Star has entered their second division team this year.

 

[DIOGENES]

If we take the long view Lignano is across the bay from Trieste and was part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire till WW1. Even after WW2 there was a period when Trieste was divided between Italy and Yugoslavia. Even though the death of 60 million people was supposed to sort this out I think near enough is good enough.

 

[deluded pom?]

The BBC did a piece on their sports reports yesterday on today’s Challenge Cup game between Millom and RSB, even sending a reporter to Belgrade. Well done the Beeb. I’m not sure if it’s possible to view it in Australia though.

 

[adamkungl]

Pity RSB couldnt go a step further in the Cup.
But this gives them a real indicator of where they're at - flogging Turkish teams less than a year old proves nothing.

Will be a wake up call to everyone involved to know they are worse than a Cumbrian amateur team. Only way to grow.

 

[miguel de cervantes]

Yep, the coach/manager or whoever wasn't being fooled. He said he wanted them to be flogged.

 

[adamkungl]

Next step would be to organise something like a 3 game tour of England or France against some similar quality teams.
A Challenge Cup entry is good but 1 game then knocked out isn't enough to really get rolling.Gotta be playing at that higher level more often

 

[Perth Tiger]

Could they also try and enter the French cup, Lord Derby?

 

[Jankuloski]

Hi everyone, I’m the captain and coach of New Belgrade. Happy to reply to all questions, though Adam pretty much summed up everything.

Except for the discussion on Italy No way is it considered Balkans, but Balkans is more of a naming than a strict rule. The point of BSL is to incentivize Union clubs in other countries to switch to League, that’s how things started up in Bulgaria and Turkey, and now there are clubs playing League full time in both countries.

 

[Foreign Legion]

What's the traveling like between clubs and countries? And is there a website and can you post up all the club logos? Need to pick and support a team..

 

[adamkungl]

On a total side note, I visited Serbia recently, unfortunately didn't catch a game of RL.
But
Great place to visit, Belgrade is a really cool city, Novi Sad was excellent in winter snow, there's some great scenery and national parks.
Underrated destination for Europe travelers and now has the added bonus of being able to catch a game of Balkans footy!

 

[langpark]

They've just announced a new format for 2019. 3 groups of 3.

In Group A, you've got the big 3, which are a lot stronger than the rest. Group B is the weaker teams of Belgrade. And Group C are the teams from regional Serbia (mostly the south I believe), with Radnicki Nis being by far the strongest of the 3. I think it's a good mix between ranked divisions and regional divide to keep travel costs low.

 

[deluded pom?]

They've just announced a new format for 2019. 3 groups of 3.

In Group A, you've got the big 3, which are a lot stronger than the rest. Group B is the weaker teams of Belgrade. And Group C are the teams from regional Serbia (mostly the south I believe), with Radnicki Nis being by far the strongest of the 3. I think it's a good mix between ranked divisions and regional divide to keep travel costs low.

Any idea what the format is?

 

[Irish-bulldog]

Hopefully we see more union clubs switching and joining the real code. Hopefully see some real growth and a continued raise in standards

 

[adamkungl]

Any idea what the format is?

If i understand correctly, Group A all go through to the 'Super League' finals (essentially just playing an extra round of games against each other) and Group B and C playoff for the 4th spot.

Bit of an odd one but apparently it's due to the fairly large gap between the top 3 and the rest

 

[deluded pom?]

If i understand correctly, Group A all go through to the 'Super League' finals (essentially just playing an extra round of games against each other) and Group B and C playoff for the 4th spot.

Bit of an odd one but apparently it's due to the fairly large gap between the top 3 and the rest

Sounds like a very minimal season to me. Am I reading that right? They will only be playing about half a dozen games at the most?