Lars was selected to play for Norway Rugby U18 after his successful trial in June this year, and was called up for training and a friendly match against Sweden Rugby U18 13-15 September. The Match was scheduled on Saturday 14 September in the afternoon, and arranged by The International Rugby Board with their program "Get Northern Europe into Rugby".

Travelling out to Oslo, Lars joined up with his team mates at the team hotel Friday Afternoon. The Norwegian team is made up by a mix of local players, players who qualify on residency and Lars (Heathfield and Waldron RFC) and Aleks (Esher RFC).

After a light session and team talk it was time to retire to the rooms (so no time to explore the beautiful capital of Norway) for a good night sleep before the match against Sweden. The National Team left the hotel 0900 in the morning for the 3 hour drive into Vannersborg in Sweden, where Vanersborg Rugby was going to host the match at their stadium.

The Norwegian National Team did a 2 hours light training and warm up session, before they ran onto the Pitch with the Swedish National Team for kick off 1430. Norway Rugby has never beaten Sweden Rugby in any competitive match in either seniors or juniors before.

Although the boys were looking forward to the match you could clearly see they where nervous, but that seemed to settle quite quickly as soon as the No 10 took the kick off for Norway.
Norway Rugby won the ball back and went straight to attack and occupied the Swedish 22 for the first couple of minutes until Norway got a penalty. Lars playing no 6 took a quick tap and go and went for the try line but was held up, however he managed to pass the ball infield to his team mate (as Lars also did in the 39 minute) who scored the first try in the 5 minute . The match was great to watch from start to end, and the two teams followed each other all the way:

5 min Try Norway Sweden 0 - Norway 5
10 min Try Sweden Sweden 5 - Norway 5
15 min Try Norway Sweden 5 - Norway 10
27 Min Try Sweden Sweden 10 - Norway 10
34 min Try Sweden Sweden 15 - Norway 10
39 min Try Norway Sweden 15 - Norway 15
44 min Try Sweden Sweden 20 - Norway 15
59 min Try Norway Sweden 20 - Norway 20
65 min Try Norway Sweden 20 - Norway 25

As the matched progressed the Norwegian players started to gel more and more together as a team, while the Swedish Team (who played in the European Championship last Year) grew more and more frustrated. This you could clearly see on their reaction towards Lars who played blind side flanker and was up in the Swedish faces as soon as they had the ball, and in the end the referee called in the two captains, culminating in a warning for a Swedish player.
Overall the match was played in the spirit of rugby and the Swedish Rugby Federation had taken their host role seriously towards their Norwegian visitors.

Norway had secured a historic win for the new Norwegian Junior Team and Norwegian rugby!

After late lunch and speeches from both federations, the Norwegian Team boarded the coach and went back to Oslo and their Team Dinner.

Sunday morning after breakfast the team went through yesterdays match followed by a light 4 hour training session at the Norwegian Sports Federation training Centre in Oslo.
Included in the talk was of course information about an upcoming training camp together with Sweden's Rugby Federation U18 and the Danish Rugby Federation U18 in Malmo, Sweden this October.
Including two friendly matches against Sweden and Denmark. This 5 days training camp and activities are arranged by IRB "Get Northern Europe Into Rugby", and is something the boys are all looking forward too with a smile and a questions on their face "Can we do it again, and can we beat the Danish Vikings?

Back at Oslo Airport the Coach had a chat with the boys who was going to fly home to England, Lars commented, "This has been a great experience, first of all beating the Swedes so my dad stays happy! and secondly playing international rugby for Norway and taking part in building up a new team for the future is great, and I can only thank my coaches home at H&W RFC for getting me here and a huge thank you to the Technical Director of the Norwegian Rugby Federation and the U18 Team Manager Jose M.G. for the tremendous work he has been putting in to make this happen and I am looking forward to continue to play for both Club and Country!"

Report by Per Thorkildsen - Nordic Countries Ambassador for Heathfield & Waldron RFC