St Albans Centurions prop forward Niall Braniff will be running out in the colours of Serbian Rugby League club Red Star Belgrade for the next couple of months. Niall recently flew out to Serbia, where he joined the club in their last few weeks of their season. Red Star play in the Serbian Rugby League and the Balkans Superleague, and this season they are trying and consolidate top spot in the Serbian League, win their Grand Final semi final against Radniki Nis and also get to the finals of the Balkan Superleague. Niall says “This all came about through the Centurions physio, Len McMain. Len is also the Serbian national teams physiotherapist. We were talking about European Rugby League and he just happened to mention that Red Star were looking to strengthen their team in the build up to a very busy end of season. I mentioned what a great opportunity it would be to play out there, and, to cut a long story short, Red Star looked at a few videos of me playing, made enquiries and asked me to join them. I'm now just waiting for a few details to be confirmed. I am really looking forward to this experience.” The Serbian Rugby League is made up of teams from Serbia only, but the Balkans Superleague is made up of the top clubs from several country's rugby league competitions, these are Novi Beograd (Serbia), Budapest (Hungary), Partizan (Serbia), Vitez (Bosnia), Lokomotiv Sofia (Bulgaria), Red Star Belgrade (Serbia), Kadikoy Bulls (Turkey) and Dorcol (Serbia). St Albans Centurions chairman Andy Lake said “We are all pleased that Niall will be getting the experience of playing in another country. Serbia is one of the great success stories of our sport. Rugby league started there in 2001, and now there are 17 clubs and over a thousand registered players, and each year the numbers increase. Several Serbian players have already had trials with Superleague clubs in this country.” Update 15.11.17 Red Star Belgrade have won the Serbian Grand Final against local rivals Partizan Belgrade by 44 points to 22. Niall was playing in the game and Len McMain was the physio. A nice touch at the end was when they asked Len to present the trophy to the winning team as a thank you for all the work he has done for Serbian RL. When interviewed by Serbian TV, Len was wearing his Cents top and even name dropped St Albans Centurions a few times. Comments are closed.
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