World Footy News

The Denmark Vikings recently paid the airfares and confirmed their return to International Cup footy. To celebrate, they took on the Swedish Elks and ran out 58-point victors in a match marked by the almost-traditional heavy rain that has dogged Scandinavian Cup test matches.

A tight first quarter saw the Danes take a 13-point advantage into the first break, before pulling away with the breeze to lead by seven goals at half time. At this point the skies opened, effectively ending the Elks' chances of pegging back the difference, the Danes winning 12.9.81 to 3.5.23.

Best on ground went to Denmark's René Damborg Jensen, with Danish veteran Erik Krolmark kicking six goals. Krolmark recently celebrated the 500th goal in his DAFL career with North Copenhagen, as well as coincidentally posting his 1000th career behind in the same game.

The summer thus far in Copenhagen had been quite warm and dry, holding up for a relatively dry first half. The game was bottlenecked in the early stages of the first quarter with the Swedes using a physically hard game to counter the Vikings' skill advantage.

Fifteen minutes into the first quarter, Denmark led by two behinds to one, but at that point the floodgates opened and they rammed on three goals, all to spearhead Erik Krolmark, to lead by 13 points at the first break.

The Danes broke the game open in the second quarter with the wind as they were allowed to get their running game going. With big Jens Djernes providing a big target up forward, they managed a five goal to one quarter. With regular engine room Christian Rose not taking the field due to injury, Peter Bjarnum and Mikkel Højgaard stepped nicely into the breach.

As half time drew to a close, the heavens opened up and the downpour ended the Elks' hopes of getting back into the game. They had moved gun midfielder Roger Nilsson to full back to counter the dangerous Krolmark (with some success), and they managed the first goal of the quarter, but the heavy rain made scoring difficult and when it cleared the Vikings pulled one back just before the quarter ended.

Although the scoreboard showed the game to be in the Danes' grasp, the commitment of the players did not wane - with three players sent off in a fiery last quarter as Denmark pulled away to win comfortably.

There were several candidates for the Best-on-Ground Lundquist Medal. For the Swedes, Andreas Svensson got his usual dose of leather poisoning and 18-year-old Hans Andersson tried hard all day. For Denmark, Djernes and Troels Ottesen were high on the list but in the end the award went to Jutland's René Damborg Jensen for his four-quarter effort.

These two nations are building a healthy rivalry to match those of Great Britain-Ireland and Canada-USA, and plans are already underway for next year's clash to be held in Stockholm for the first time.

Full scores at the Footy Record.