# 2009–10 Rugby-Bundesliga

The 2009–10 Rugby-Bundesliga was the 39th edition of this competition and the 90th edition of the German rugby union championship. Ten teams played a home-and-away season with a finals round between the top four teams at the end. The bottom two teams are relegated. The season started on 29 August 2009 and finished with the championship final on 29 May 2010, interrupted by a winter break from early December to late March.
The competition's defending champion was SC 1880 Frankfurt, who won it in the previous two seasons. In the 2010 final, SC 1880 lost to Heidelberger RK, the previous seasons runners-up, which won its first championship since 1986 and its seventh overall. The final was drawn 22-all after regular time and was decided in extra time, where HRK scored 17 unanswered points to be crowned German champions of the men, already having won the 2010 women's final earlier that year. The 2010 final was contested by the two teams expected to do so at the start of the season, SC 1880 and HRK being the only two teams in Germany considered professional. The final was considered to have been of high niveau, with long-term German Bundestrainer Peter Ianusevici declaring it the best German championship final he had ever watched.
Below the Rugby-Bundesliga sat the 2nd Rugby-Bundesliga, which is divided into two divisions with ten teams each. With the RC Luxembourg, a team from Luxembourg, a non-German side competed in the league in 2009-10. The inclusion of this side in the 2009 promotion round to the 2nd Bundesliga had caused some debate in regard to its legality, as the club had not qualified to do so through the German league system and was not a member of any of the German regional rugby federations. However, RC Luxembourg's application was declared valid in regard to the German Rugby Federation's rules and regulations and the team finished second in the promotion round, earning a place in the 2nd Bundesliga for 2009-10.

## Overview

The 2009-10 modus was somewhat different from the previous season. The competition had been expanded from nine to ten teams. It marks the first time since introduction of the single-division Bundesliga in 2001, that ten teams competed in the league. This change of modus was decided upon on 19 July 2008 at the annual general meeting of the German rugby association, the DRV. It was decided to expand the league to ten teams for 2009-10. It was also then decided to introduce an extended play-off format. All up, the number of season games in the Rugby-Bundesliga increases to 94 from 76.
Like in 2008-09, the top four teams qualified for the finals. The two semi-finals winners then contested the championship final.
At the bottom end of the table, nominally the last two teams were relegated while the 2nd Rugby-Bundesliga champions are promoted, however, this was subject to the 2nd Bundesliga champions accepting promotion, which was not the case.
The defending champion in 2009-10 was SC 1880 Frankfurt, who beat Heidelberger RK in the 2008-09 final while the ASV Köln Rugby and DSV 78 Hannover were newly promoted to the league, having replaced the DRC Hannover. Suffering from a string of injuries, especially to its forward line, and heavy defeats during the season, ASV Köln Rugby made the decision in mid-April 2010, to withdraw from the Rugby-Bundesliga and not to play its five remaining matches. Köln thereby was automatically relegated from the league.
In the 2nd Bundesliga, the winners of the two divisions were nominally promoted to the Bundesliga, unless they were reserve teams, in which case the right for promotion would have gone to the next-best non-reserve team. The bottom two teams in the 2nd Bundesliga faced the prospect of relegation to the Rugby-Regionalliga. In the South/West Division, the Karlsruher SV Rugby withdrew in March 2010, its record being expulsed.
As a sign of the gap between the Bundesliga and the 2nd Bundesliga, TSV Victoria Linden, who only won the 2009-10 North/East division in the last round of the championship, declined promotion, citing the additional cost of travelling and the limited player pool as their reason. The South/West champion, Stuttgarter RC, has also indicated that it would not take up promotion because of the loss of eight first-team players at the end of the season, leaving the Bundesliga with only eight clubs for the next season. It also meant, for the first time ever, that no club from Hanover would compete at the top level of German rugby.
DSV 78 protested the decision to reduce the league to eight teams again and thereby relegating the club. For the 2nd Bundesliga, this also meant, only one team each would be promoted to the two regional divisions, in the North/East, this was SC Siemensstadt, the club being directly promoted, while, in the South/West, TV Pforzheim won the promotion tournament of the five southern Regionalliga champions in Nuremberg on 12 June 2010.

## Bundesliga table

| | Club | Played | Won | Drawn | Lost | Points for | Points against | Difference | Points |
| 1 | SC 1880 Frankfurt | 16 | 14 | 0 | 2 | 716 | 143 | 573 | 66 |
| 2 | RG Heidelberg | 16 | 11 | 2 | 3 | 512 | 307 | 205 | 57 |
| 3 | Heidelberger RK | 16 | 10 | 2 | 4 | 575 | 221 | 354 | 54 |
| 4 | TSV Handschuhsheim | 16 | 9 | 2 | 5 | 383 | 292 | 91 | 49 |
| 5 | SC Neuenheim | 16 | 9 | 1 | 6 | 347 | 320 | 27 | 47 |
| 6 | Berliner Rugby Club | 16 | 5 | 0 | 11 | 364 | 414 | -50 | 29 |
| 7 | RK 03 Berlin | 16 | 5 | 1 | 10 | 259 | 589 | -330 | 27 |
| 8 | RK Heusenstamm | 16 | 3 | 0 | 13 | 233 | 719 | -486 | 14 |
| 9 | DSV 78 Hannover | 16 | 2 | 0 | 14 | 156 | 540 | -384 | 10 |
| 10 | ASV Köln Rugby | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
* Relegated: ASV Köln Rugby
* Promoted: None
* ASV Köln Rugby withdrew in April 2010, its record being expulsed.

## Bundesliga results

| Club | SCF | RGH | HRK | TSV | SCN | BRC | RKB | RKH | DSV | ASV |
| SC 1880 Frankfurt | — | 40-6 | 33-16 | 29-6 | 20-23 | 23-14 | 59-8 | 84-0 | 68-5 | 50-0 |
| RG Heidelberg | 23-9 | — | 31-24 | 16-20 | 22-28 | 48-12 | 68-3 | 50-18 | 51-9 | 0-0 |
| Heidelberger RK | 3-5 | 34-34 | — | 16-12 | 20-20 | 27-13 | 61-5 | 43-3 | 74-10 | 65-0 |
| TSV Handschuhsheim | 15-22 | 13-13 | 7-37 | — | 23-20 | 25-11 | 10-10 | 38-24 | 33-8 | 59-0 |
| SC Neuenheim | 0-28 | 23-31 | 6-29 | 27-20 | — | 26-17 | 24-7 | 43-10 | 25-16 | 81-0 |
| Berliner RC | 5-94 | 12-18 | 25-17 | 10-14 | 18-20 | — | 51-19 | 77-21 | 39-5 | 0-0 |
| RK 03 Berlin | 12-57 | 26-39 | 7-73 | 19-61 | 17-12 | 23-18 | — | 36-19 | 34-3 | 51-10 |
| RK Heusenstamm | 7-102 | 21-34 | 10-63 | 12-54 | 14-29 | 19-17 | 31-28 | — | 24-18 | 25-15 |
| DSV 78 Hannover | 0-43 | 15-28 | 0-38 | 18-32 | 28-21 | 15-25 | 3-5 | 3-0 | — | 0-0 |
| ASV Köln Rugby | 0-0 | 0-77 | 0-0 | 8-79 | 5-53 | 3-24 | 0-97 | 3-49 | 0-22 | — |
* ASV Köln Rugby played 13 of its 18 scheduled matches before withdrawing, results were later expulsed from the record.

### Key

| Home win | Draw | Away win | Game not played |

## Player statistics
### Try scorers

The leading try scores in the Rugby-Bundesliga 2009–10 season were (10 tries or more):
| Player | Club | Tries |
| Alexander Pipa | TSV Handschuhsheim | 22 |
| Manasah Sita | SC Neuenheim | 19 |
| Pieter Johannes Jordaan | Heidelberger RK | 19 |
| Caine Elisara | Heidelberger RK | 19 |
| Bastian Himmer | RG Heidelberg | 15 |
| Mark Sztyndera | SC 1880 Frankfurt | 13 |
| Colin Grzanna | Berliner RC | 13 |
| Keiran Manawatu | SC 1880 Frankfurt | 13 |
| Christian Lill | RK 03 Berlin | 11 |
| Marten Strauch | SC Neuenheim | 11 |
| Jason Campell | SC 1880 Frankfurt | 10 |
| Tom Schilling | RK 03 Berlin | 10 |
| Sean Armstrong | Heidelberger RK | 10 |

### Point scorers

The leading point scores in the Rugby-Bundesliga 2009–10 season were (100 points or more):
| Player | Club | Points |
| Fabian Heimpel | RG Heidelberg | 225 |
| Mark Sztyndera | SC 1880 Frankfurt | 133 |
| Thorsten Wiedemann | Heidelberger RK | 128 |
| Keiran Manawatu | SC 1880 Frankfurt | 128 |
| Pascal Schuster | RK Heusenstamm | 115 |
| Matthias Pipa | TSV Handschuhsheim | 113 |
| Colin Grzanna | Berliner RC | 111 |
| Alexander Pipa | TSV Handschuhsheim | 110 |

### Per club

The top try and point scorers per club were:
| Club | Player | Tries | Player | Points |
| Berliner RC | Colin Grzanna | 13 | Colin Grzanna | 111 |
| RK 03 Berlin | Christian Lill | 11 | Marc Lowdon | 96 |
| SC 1880 Frankfurt | Mark Sztyndera | 13 | Mark Sztyndera | 133 |
| TSV Handschuhsheim | Alexander Pipa | 22 | Matthias Pipa | 113 |
| DSV 78 Hannover | Benjamin Simm | 4 | Marvin Dieckmann | 67 |
| RG Heidelberg | Bastian Himmer | 15 | Fabian Heimpel | 225 |
| Heidelberger RK | Pieter Johannes Jordaan Caine Elisara | 19 | Thorsten Wiedemann | 128 |
| RK Heusenstamm | Torsten Krapscha | 5 | Pascal Schuster | 115 |
| ASV Köln Rugby | Seven players | 1 | Tobias Sylvester | 11 |
| SC Neuenheim | Manasah Sita | 19 | Lars Eckert | 56 |

## Semi-finals and final
### Semi-finals

* 2010-05-22 15:00
| RG Heidelberg | 15 – 36 | Heidelberger RK |
| Try: Himmer (2) 72', 80' Con: Heimpel 80' Pen: Heimpel 10' | Report | Try: Armstrong, Liebig (2), Elisara Con: Hamstra (2) Pen: Hamstra (3) Drop: Hamstra |
* Fritz-Grunebaum-Sportpark, Heidelberg Attendance: 900 Referee: Dana Teargarden
* 2010-05-23 15:00
| SC 1880 Frankfurt | 27 – 16 | TSV Handschuhsheim |
| Try: Manawatu 15', Hauck 75' Con: Manawatu 76' Pen: Manawatu (5) | Report | Try: Wetzel 35' Con: Pipa 35' Pen: Pipa (3) 15', 40', 49' |
* Sportanlage an der Feldgerichtstrasse, Frankfurt am Main Attendance: 800 Referee: Dana Teargarden

### Final

* 2010-05-29 14:00
| SC 1880 Frankfurt | 22 – 39 (aet) | Heidelberger RK |
| Try: Porter 47' Con: Manawatu 47' Pen: Manawatu (5) 21', 33', 60', 75', 80'+ | Report | Try: Liebig 54', Hamstra 68', Jordaan 81', Keinhorst 98' Con: Hamstra (2) 81', 98' Pen: Hamstra (4) 20', 51', 65', 88' Drop: Jordaan 34' |
* Sportanlage an der Feldgerichtstrasse, Frankfurt am Main Attendance: 1,800 Referee: Frank Himmer
SC 1880 FRANKFURT: :
| FB | 15 | Anton Ewald 51' |
| RW | 14 | Keiran Manawatu |
| OC | 13 | Mark Sztyndera 106' |
| IC | 12 | Graham Smith |
| LW | 11 | Sam Leung-Wai |
| FH | 10 | Jason Campell |
| SH | 9 | Dennis Feidelberg |
| N8 | 8 | Ross Warrick 65' to 75' |
| OF | 7 | Andrew Porter |
| BF | 6 | Alexander Hauck 110' |
| RL | 5 | Daniel Preussner 51' |
| LL | 4 | Rolf Wacha 84' |
| TP | 3 | Sam Biddles |
| HK | 2 | Michael Howells |
| LP | 1 | Syd Douglas |
| Substitutes: |||
| RL | | Chad Slaby 51' |
| FB | | Bevan Gray 51' 94' |
| N8 | | Andrew Shaw 94' |
| FB | | Erik Podzuweit 94' |
| OC | | Alexander Berwing 106' |
| BF | | Rico Schomacker 110' |
| Coach: |||
| Aaron Satchwell ||||
HEIDELBERGER RK: :
| FB | 15 | James Keinhorst 110' |
| RW | 14 | Christopher Neureuther |
| OC | 13 | Steffen Liebig 105' |
| IC | 12 | Pieter Johannes Jordaan |
| LW | 11 | Anjo Buckman 71' |
| FH | 10 | Carlin Hamstra |
| SH | 9 | Sean Armstrong |
| N8 | 8 | Manuel Ballerin 55' |
| OF | 7 | Carlo Schmidt 51' |
| BF | 6 | Caine Elisara |
| RL | 5 | Julio David Rodriguez |
| LL | 4 | Dan Armitage |
| TP | 3 | Patrick Schliwa 75' |
| HK | 2 | Alexander Biskupek |
| LP | 1 | Arthur Zeiler |
| Substitutes: |||
| OF | | Sydney Brenner 51' |
| N8 | | Ben Dubyk 55' |
| LW | | Christopher Liebig 71' |
| TP | | Alexander Wiedemann 75' 105' |
| TP | | Benedikt Rehm 105' |
| OC | | Andreas Götz 105' |
| FB | | Erkut Leventdurmus 110' |
| Coach: |||
| Murray Archibald ||||

## 2nd Bundesliga tables
### South/West

| | Club | Played | Won | Drawn | Lost | Points for | Points against | Difference | Points |
| 1 | Stuttgarter RC | 16 | 13 | 0 | 3 | 610 | 194 | 416 | 63 |
| 2 | München RFC | 16 | 12 | 1 | 3 | 424 | 258 | 166 | 58 |
| 3 | RC Luxembourg | 16 | 12 | 0 | 4 | 309 | 245 | 64 | 53 |
| 4 | RG Heidelberg II | 16 | 8 | 0 | 8 | 311 | 294 | 17 | 41 |
| 5 | SC 1880 Frankfurt II | 16 | 6 | 0 | 10 | 374 | 328 | 46 | 34 |
| 6 | StuSta München | 16 | 7 | 1 | 8 | 298 | 391 | -93 | 34 |
| 7 | TSV Handschuhsheim II | 16 | 5 | 0 | 11 | 243 | 328 | -85 | 25 |
| 8 | Heidelberger RK II | 16 | 5 | 0 | 11 | 202 | 451 | -249 | 17 |
| 9 | RC Mainz | 16 | 3 | 0 | 13 | 230 | 512 | -282 | 17 |
| 10 | Karlsruher SV Rugby | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
* Promoted to Bundesliga: None
* Relegated from Bundesliga: ASV Köln Rugby
* Relegated from 2nd Bundesliga: Karlsruher SV Rugby, RC Mainz
* Promoted to 2nd Bundesliga: TV Pforzheim
* Karlsruher SV Rugby withdrew in March 2010, its record being expulsed.

### North/East

| | Club | Played | Won | Drawn | Lost | Points for | Points against | Difference | Points |
| 1 | TSV Victoria Linden | 178 | 16 | 0 | 2 | 656 | 202 | 454 | 76 |
| 2 | USV Potsdam | 18 | 15 | 0 | 3 | 838 | 193 | 645 | 74 |
| 3 | RU Hohen Neuendorf | 18 | 13 | 0 | 5 | 614 | 243 | 371 | 63 |
| 4 | FC St Pauli Rugby | 18 | 12 | 0 | 6 | 592 | 251 | 341 | 62 |
| 5 | SG SV Odin/VfR Döhren | 18 | 11 | 0 | 7 | 412 | 325 | 87 | 49 |
| 6 | SC Germania List | 18 | 9 | 1 | 8 | 333 | 465 | -132 | 44 |
| 7 | DRC Hannover | 18 | 6 | 0 | 12 | 291 | 486 | -195 | 31 |
| 8 | Berliner RC II | 18 | 4 | 0 | 14 | 236 | 682 | -446 | 18 |
| 9 | FT Adler Kiel Rugby | 18 | 3 | 0 | 15 | 151 | 736 | -585 | 13 |
| 10 | Hamburger RC | 18 | 0 | 1 | 17 | 147 | 687 | -540 | 4 |
* Promoted to Bundesliga: None
* Relegated from Bundesliga: None
* Relegated from 2nd Bundesliga: FT Adler Kiel Rugby
* Promoted to 2nd Bundesliga: SC Siemensstadt

## 2nd Bundesliga final

* 2010-05-29 12:00
| TSV Victoria Linden | 10 – 59 | Stuttgarter RC |
* Sportplatz an der Feldgerichtstraße, Frankfurt am Main