Available in:

Ljubljana gets Austrian players

Goran Košutić

Dejan Danailov

Robert Cochran

During the summer break, the Ljubljana Silverhawks added six new players, five from one of Austria’s premier teams, the Carinthian Black Lions. Linebacker Gerald Regenfelder, offensive lineman Matthias Schicher, defensive linemen Hans Seppele and Peter Peter with cornerback Marcus Rieger will play for the Slovenian team in the fall part of the season, and hopefully for them, in the playoffs.

Their best players last year, David Turšič, alongside two teammates joined the Austrian team prior to this year. The Silverhawks attempted a similar thing, but their efforts to lure a few players were initially blocked. Now, with the season in Austria over, and with junior competitions starting in September, the Black Lions have allowed it, and in turn some of Ljubljana’s younger players will participate for them in the Austrian junior league and will, in the words of their coach, Uroš Valant, hopefully learn something.

“Since we have a couple of players that are not good enough for SELAF, we sent them the eight players, and from Austria we have been, with a personal invitation, able to interest five of their players”, says Valant.

Relying on foreign players has been something that the Silverhawks were forced to do – they did it this year before with American players from Grifoni Belluno in Italy, and also the year before.

“We have a big problem with the lack of players, because we don’t have a lot of backing, and last year there was no American football on TV … This year we again have NFL on Sportklub, I also comment there, so I hope that after the season we’ll get new interested players and that we’ll at least somewhat strengthen our squad”, says Valant.

They finished second to last place the previous year and now find themselves in a similar position with one win. In 2006, they started off with two wins out of first four matches, but were defeated in the final four, finishing only in front of a former SELAF team, the Legionaries. Though their score appears similar, the story is different and they are still in the running for the second playoff spot, mostly because the rival Gladiators also have just one win.

The key game is in less than two weeks in Austria, although even a win doesn’t guarantee anything, since the Gladiators have one more game after that. The 50 point loss in Budapest doesn’t do much to convince anybody they’ll be able to pull off a win, but it is important to point out that the Wolves were never challenged in the North this year.