23/05/2026
🏴☠️ DONAU FINISHES 4TH! 🏴☠️
In a historic first season in the Czech Extraliga, the Donau Pirates have achieved their main goal — finishing 4th after the regular season and securing a spot in the semifinals. What an incredible achievement for the club! 🙌
Despite today’s loss against Tatra Smíchov, results elsewhere worked in Donau’s favour, as Dragon Brno only managed a draw against Slavia. That was enough for the Pirates to hold onto 4th place.
But this achievement is about much more than today’s result.
Head Coach Sebastian Freydell shared what the team had to battle through this season and this week especially:
🗣️ “This was probably the toughest week we’ve had to deal with in the last four years. At the moment we have around 20 injured players in the squad. On top of that, we were missing 13 national team players and around 15 others unavailable for different reasons — nearly 48 players in total.
It’s incredible that we were still able to show up today with a mix of 1st, 2nd and 3rd team players, face one of the best teams in Czech rugby, and still put up a fight while proudly representing the club.
Today I’m extremely proud because it showed what this club is about — sticking together through thick and thin and always backing each other up. This game will give a lot of confidence to the whole squad, especially the seven players who are only 17 or 18 years old and stepped onto the field with absolutely no fear.”
A massive day for Rugby Donau. 💚🏉
🎙️ Looking ahead to next week’s semifinal away against Říčany:
🗣️ “Říčany are the benchmark of Czech rugby — we know exactly how difficult this challenge will be. But if our national team players come back healthy, we will do everything possible to challenge them. In a semifinal, anything can happen. If everyone is ready to leave everything on the field and we execute the right tactics, then anything is possible.”
⚓ SEMIFINAL