Dhe German 7-a-side rugby national team has qualified for a World Cup for the first time. The team of national coach Clemens von Grumbkow won the decisive quarterfinals against Italy 24:7 at the qualifying tournament in Bucharest on Sunday and thus bought the ticket for the season highlight in South Africa (September 9th to 11th).
Previously, the “Wolfpack” had pulled through the preliminary round with three wins in three games. The four quarter-final winners are already taking part in the tournament in Cape Town. Never before had a German men’s selection qualified for a World Cup in Olympic 7-a-side or 15-a-side rugby.
The team around captain Carlos Soteras Merz had finished the group phase as the third-best team after successes over Georgia (26:7), hosts Romania (52:0) and world series team Wales (12:10) and was thus the favorite European champions Spain and the Irish avoided in quarterfinals.
As expected, the German women missed the leap to the World Cup. The team of national coach Cieran Anderson, which had entered the quarterfinals as the best third in the group with a win from three games, clearly lost to the European champions from Poland with 0:43.
