 |  |  |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |  |  |
 |  |  |  |  |  |
 |  |  | |  |  |
 |  |  |  |  |  |
|  |  |  |  |  |
 |  |  | |  |
Romanian rugby is not flush with money. After work on Thursday the team from Bucharest set out in a bus hired from the ONT Romania (Oficiul National de Turism.) It was not the most luxurious bus in the world.
They travelled west across Romania and into Serbia to Belgrade, 450 or so kilometres away. Then they pressed on through Croatia to Zagreb, a further 400 km. The bus went on its merry way into Slovenia and its capital of Ljubljana. Now they headed south for the Italian border near Sežana. They had travelled over a thousand kilometres in the bus but it did not get beyond the border...
The Italian authorities decided that the bus was not good enough for Italian roads! Italians, great road-makers and car manufacturers, strongly encourage new and worthy cars for their roads.
The Romanians could not go further. They spoke to L'Aquila.
The L'Aquilans could have shrugged their shoulders, said tough in Italian and taken the points for the match.
Instead they set about getting a rescue bus to the stranded Romanians, at L'Aquila's expense!
After a three-hour wait in their apparently unacceptable bus, a new one arrived - more coach than bus - and off Dinamo Bucaresti went. Now they crossed the border into Italy and down to Trieste on the Adriatic coast.
There were still some 10 hours' travelling to do - around the Adriatic to Venice and then down to Pescara on the Adriatic and inland to the historic town of L'Aquila up in the mountains.
The story has a happy ending - for the visitors. They went on to beat L'Aquila 27-24 in an exciting match.
Then they went back up Italy and round the Adriatic to Trieste and their Romanian bus, waiting to take them back through Ljubljana, Zagreb, Belgrade and Bucharest - the team returned home in the early hours of Thursday 12 December.
Winning, a rare experience for Dinamo in the PARKER PEN Shield, may just have made the journey less arduous.
It may just be that the real winner in L'Aquila on Sunday afternoon was the spirit of rugby.
