Waratahs attract record crowd in Prague

Czech Republic's national side lost to Super 12 finalists the HSBC Waratahs in Prague before a record crowd of 5000 spectators.

To their credit, the packs were on par, while the speed and skill of the Australian backs were too much to handle for a young Czech setup. It would have been interesting to see how would Czechs improve having absent Jagr, Kafka, Rohlík and Krejčí in the team.

"Usually, after such a heavy defeat it is difficult to pick out positives but I was pleased with the forwards effort and especially pleased with the spectators turnout." said Lada Vondrasek, Czech captain.

Coach Ewen McKenzie paid credit to the Czech pack and wished the Czech team good luck in the future games. "It was a very good effort by our guys considering the amount of travel to get here," said the coach.

"They had a monstrous forward pack. Probably the biggest I've ever seen but our forwards did extremely well against them."

"The really pleasing aspect to me was the application our players put in and the professional attitude to rack up as many points as they did. I'm really proud of them."

The HSBC Waratahs will spend a day in Prague recovering before heading to Romania for two matches against by far the strongest opposition on the four match tour.

HSBC WARATAHS - 94
Tries: Shaun Berne 3, Clint Eadie 2, Tim Wright 2, Kingsley Seale 2, James Campbell, Chris Siale, Mark Howell, Sam Norton-Knight, Hugh Willoughby
Cons: Peter Hewat (9/11), Daniel Halangahu (3/3)

CZECH REPUBLIC - 3
Pens: 1

Teams:

Czech Republic: 1 Jiří Skall (Sparta) (JB Soucek, Mileau), 2 Jan Oswald (Tatra) (Martin Denko, Říčany), 3 Pavel Šťastný (Lombez Samatan, France) (Kubálek) - 4 Robert Voves (Limoges, France) (Vlastimil Madry, Praga), 5 Josef Weber (Dragon Brno) - 6 Jan Žíla (Tatra), 7 Ladislav Vondrášek (Esher, England), 8 Miroslav Němeček (Begles-Bordeaux, France) - 9 Pavel Syrový (Praga) (Vítezslav Dosedla, Dragon Brno), 10 Antonín Brabec (Tatra) (Pavel Vokrouhlík, Sparta) - 11 Ivan Smetana (Vyškov), 12 Michal Kolář (Waterloo, England), 13 Martin Pekárek (Říčany) (Martin Snídal, Vyškov), 14 Pavel Čamrda (Rícany) - 15 Tomáš Nevický (Říčany)

Waratahs: 1 Troy Takiari 2 Al Manning 3 Matt Skillecorn - 4 Kingsley Seale 5 Will Caldwell - 6 James Campbell 7 Mark Howell 8 Hugh Willoughby - 9 Brett Sheehan 10 Sam Norton-Knight - 11 Tim Wright 12 Shaun Berne (captain) 13 Clint Eadie 14 Chris Siale - 15 Peter Hewat
Replacements: 16 Jonny Hoy, 17 Benn Robinson, 18 Tom Egan, 19 Will Hunt, 20 Josh Holmes, 21 Daniel Halangahu, 22 Winston Mafi

Referee: Didier Mené (France)
Touch judges: Hervé Dubes, Vincent Azoulay (both France)