Romania: Action Heats Up As Season Winds Down

Three Weeks Left in 2015 Season in Romania

Nine games have already been played in the Romanian American Football National Championship (Campionatul National de Fotbal American – CNFA) in 2015 and only six to go in the regular season. In the first six games, the two conferences played the first part of the conference double round robin and the last three were inter-conference games.

Romania - Timisoara 89ers2

Timişoara 89ers in action

The two young teams that entered in this year’s CNFA, the Mureş Monsters, competing for the second time in the CNFA, and newcomers the Reşiţa Locomotives,  showed great progress. The Monsters have scored in every game they played, and all their games have been against past RoBowl winners, while the Locomotives scored their first touchdowns in the inter-conference game against the Bucharest Warriors.

The main rivalries made for great, great games. The first one, the Bucharest derby between the Warriors and Rebels ended in a 12-12 tie, after more then four hours of playing. The second one between the Cluj Crusaders and the Timişoara 89ers , played the very next day, was a lopsided win for the home team Crusaders. After three quarters of Crusaders domination, the Timişoara 89ers finally managed to score in the 4th quarter against an impressive Transylvania defense.

The third game was played this past week end between Bucharest Rebels and Timişoara 89ers. It was the chance for Timişoara to take their revenge against the team that deprived them of their first RoBowl win in front of their home crowd, no less. The game went badly for Timişoara, as they never managed to score and the Rebels ended up beating them 46-0.

Romania - Cluj Crusaders

Cluj Crusaders

As the second part of the conference double round robin starts, in the South-East Conference, the two teams from Bucharest are fighting for first place and a home game in the semi-finals both with two wins and a tie. The Mureş Monsters have no chance to gain second place with three losses.

In the North-West Conference, the Cluj Crusaders have everything in their favor to win first place. Timişoara has only a theoretical chance of picking up first place and for that, they would need wins against both the Reşiţa Locomotive and Cluj Crusaders and they would need Reşiţa to beat Cluj. For the Locomotives or Locos, to win second place from the 89ers, they would need only a win against 89ers by a better score than what they lost to them with in the first part of the double round robin.

There is plenty of great action left for fans to watch.

Tiberiu is the editor-in-chief for FirstDown.ro, a Romanian site covering the growth and development of American Football in Romania and a football official.