We won the championship with a decisive victory against our biggest rivals Esztergom Vitézek. Last year, we fell agonisingly short of the championship. 

We led the final game, against Esztergom, 17-3 with 20 minutes remaining. We had won our two previous fixtures against Esztergom, and we lost our way, eventually losing the game on penalties. In the 30 odd years of following rugby, I have only seen 3 matches decided by penalties. It was heart breaking.

This year our goal was to win the title. We started well, winning our first 4 games in the restructured league format. We then met our familiar foe in Esztergom and were soundly beaten. Back to the drawing board. We had to improve and fast.

The Christmas break ended and our league game against Száhalombatta was cancelled. They had withdrawn from the league, which meant we would only have two competitive fixtures, one being a semi-final, before a possible final appearance, which undoubtedly would be Esztergom.



We headed to Kecskemét for final league fixture, knowing that any win would be enough for us to secure our place in the semi-finals. We ground out a two-point win. Still much work had to be done, one thing that was going for us was that we had now recruited numerous new players, either from Erasmus programmes, university courses or just relocations.

We had to wait for the last round of fixtures to be played to know who our opponents would be in the semi-finals, out of Szeged or Nagykoros. Both teams play a forward heavy game that would test our resolve to the maximum. It turned out that Nagykoros would be our opponents in our home drawn semi-final, by virtue of finishing 2nd in the league.

The semi-final was played over the easter weekend, in which we had many players absent. We could only name a squad of 20 players. We fought hard against a big physical team and recorded a 41-29 victory. We had made it and we now had 4 training sessions to prepare for a final against the number one ranked, unbeaten team. The team that snatched the championship title from us the year before.

At this point I just want to add some context about how Budapest Exiles Rugby Club is run. We are made up completely of volunteers. We have no fixed income, only membership fees. We have no fixed base for training.

The women's 7s team and the men's team were luckily allowed to rent Kincsem Park for training this half season, which really helped me to lift the level of the training sessions provided. I must thank Gareth Jackson and Gareth Lloyd, of RG Heidelberg and Nagykovacsi Dragons respectively. Both gentlemen have given me their time to ask questions, give feedback and help me out. I've worked with the Exiles as the head coach for 4 seasons now; I am always looking for support. The first season I was coach we finished 4th, the second we finished 3rd, the third we finished 2nd; surely, I thought, this pattern was going to continue.



Furthermore, this season 41 players had pulled on the pink and black for the Exiles. These players consist of 16 different nationalities. From the final squad last year only 7 players remained. As a club we generally work on 2 year cycle of players and we are lucky to have a settled team for more than 2 years.

I did not want to go to the finals just to make up the numbers. I made some changes to our training, the players responded excellently. Our numbers in training doubled over the course of a week from 15 to 32 players. On our last training session, and we said to each other "whatever happens now, happens".

Here I want to tell you about our players, because for me, they are some of the best human beings I have ever met. They fully buy into everything I give them. They rarely question any decisions I make, and we show each other huge levels of respect. I foster an environment for them to be open, honest and handle themselves with integrity.

I always try to show these values towards them as well, as an educational professional, coaching is something that I enjoy. I regularly talk to the players about Radical Candor and Kim Scott, along with many other educational theories. As a teacher I have improved because of my rugby coaching, as a coach I have improved because of my teaching.

Kick-off: wow! What a start, within the first 15 minutes we stretched out a 10-0 lead. Philip Kroupa scoring a try and Gary Kavanagh converting and then adding a penalty. To Esztergom's credit they came back into it. They have some great players.



They have a team that has played with each other for many years, some of my friends play for them from when I was coached the national team last season. They are an excellent opponent, and they showed it yet again, going into a 14-10 lead. At the end of the first half, we rallied too, Kavanagh slotting another penalty to go in at halftime 14-13.

Halftime was massive for us. I had my last chance to give the guys the motivation to go on and win this game. We talked about our energy, how we had to work harder than them. We talked about our strategy, we weren't really playing the patterns we wanted, but yet we were still in the game.

I left them saying that no questions should be left unanswered: anything that Esztergom gave us we had to answer. The team captain Aron Erdelyi then took over, I must mention here that I think Aron is great. Such an intelligent, kind and inspiring man.



In the second half we were excellent. At first, we traded penalties and the score was 17-16 Kavanagh with another 3, but then we took control. A water break was called and this allowed us to change our strategy slightly, kick the ball and keep it in play. This led to 6 more points for Kavanagh. For the last 15 minutes Ezstergom could not answer the questions we were posing. It was the best display of rugby an Exiles side had shown me since I took over coaching in 2021. On the 80^th minute we ran the ball from our 22 and Nyamanza scored the winning try.

We did it.

If you are interested in playing, learning, coaching or just enjoying some rugby from the stands, please do contact the Budapest Exiles through our social media channels.

Photos by Thomas Kieffer