| Birth name | Colin Grzanna | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Date of birth | 5 November 1979 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Place of birth | Berlin, Germany | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Height | 1.91 m (6 ft 3 in) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Weight | 96 kg (15 st 2 lb) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| University | Charite Universitätsmedizin | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Occupation(s) | Surgeon | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Rugby union career | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Colin Grzanna is a German international rugby union player, playing for the Berliner RC in the Rugby-Bundesliga and the German national rugby union team. He is captain and player-coach of his club team and has also captained the German team at times.
Colin Grzanna started playing rugby when he was five years old, in 1984, playing with his South African cousins.
He is currently playing for Berliner Rugby Club, where he also covers a coaching role, together with Gerrit van Look, another player of the German national team.
Although playing for Berlin for the most part of his career, Grzanna spent the 2000 season with the Northwood Crusaders in Durban, South Africa before returning to Berlin again.
He was part of the German Sevens side at the World Games 2005 in Duisburg, where Germany finished 8th. [1]
He filled in as German captain for an injured Jens Schmidt in late 2007 and early 2008. Himself injured later in the year, suffering a broken hand and requiring pins after the game against SC Neuenheim on 13 September 2008, [2] he planned to retire from the national team but, according to his captain Schmidt, he loves the game too much and Germany needs his skills too badly for him to retire. [3]
His greatest success as a national team player was the promotion to Division 1 of the European Nations Cup in 2008. In an interview after the promotion-winning game, which he captained, he stated that, in his opinion, this was the greatest moment in German rugby in almost 30 years. [4]
Grzanna voiced his anger with the image of the game in Germany, where it is often unfairly associated with only being played by rough individuals. He considers it the perfect game, as – he says – there is a position for everybody in the game, regardless of someone's size or height. [5]
Grzanna last played for Germany on 2 May 2009, against Russia, and has since retired from the national team.
Like most of his fellow German team mates, Grzanna is an amateur rugby player and a surgeon by profession. He studied human medicine at the Charite Universitätsmedizin in Berlin from 2000 to 2007 and now works as a consultant surgeon. Apart from German, he is also fluent in English and French. [6]
Colin Grzanna's personal statistics in club and international rugby: [7]
| Year | Club | Division | Games | Tries | Con | Pen | DG | Place |
| 2008–09 | Berliner RC | Rugby-Bundesliga | 10 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 4th – Semi-finals |
| 2009–10 | 11 | 13 | 11 | 8 | 0 | 6th | ||
| 2010–11 | 9 | 2 | 6 | 4 | 1 | 6th | ||
| 2011–12 | 3 | 2 | 7 | 2 | 2 | 9th |
| Year | Team | Competition | Games | Points | Place |
| 2006–2008 | Germany | European Nations Cup Second Division | 8 | 18 | Champions |
| 2008–2010 | Germany | European Nations Cup First Division | 4 | 0 | 6th – Relegated |
| Year | Team | Competition | Games | Points |
| 2007 | Germany | Friendly | 2 | 0 |
The Berliner Rugby Club is a German rugby union club from Berlin, currently playing in the Rugby-Bundesliga.
The Rugby-Bundesliga 2008-09 was the 38th edition of this competition and the 89th edition of the German rugby union championship. Nine teams play a home-and-away season with a finals round between the top four teams at the end. The bottom two teams determine which club is relegated in an end-of-season decider. The season started on 30 August 2008 and finished with the championship final on 23 May 2009, interrupted by a winter break from early December to late February.
Jens Schmidt is a German international rugby union player, playing for the TSV Handschuhsheim in the Rugby-Bundesliga and the German national rugby union team. He was, until 2009, the captain of the German team, but then retired from international rugby, to return once more in 2010.
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Tim Kasten is a German international rugby union player, playing for the Heidelberger RK in the Rugby-Bundesliga and the German national rugby union team. He made his debut for Germany in a game against Sweden in 2004.
Gerrit van Look is a retired German international rugby union player, having last played for the Berliner RC in the Rugby-Bundesliga and the German national rugby union team. He was also, together with Colin Grzanna, for a time the coach of the Berliner RC.
Christopher Weselek is a rugby coach and retired German international rugby union player, having last played for the RG Heidelberg in the Rugby-Bundesliga and the German national rugby union team. He is currently one of the successful rugby coaches in Germany.
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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.
Raphael Hackl is a German international rugby union player, playing for the Berliner RC in the Rugby-Bundesliga and the German national rugby union team.
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The Berliner SV 92 Rugby is a German rugby union club from Berlin, currently playing in the 2. Rugby Bundesliga Ost. It is part of a larger club, the Berliner SV 92, which also offers other sports like association football, baseball and basketball.
The Germany national under-18 rugby union team is the under-18 team of the Germany national rugby union team in the sport of rugby union.
The 2010–11 Rugby-Bundesliga was the 40th edition of this competition and the 91st edition of the German rugby union championship. In the Rugby-Bundesliga, the first division, nine teams played a home-and-away season with a finals round between the top four teams at the end. The season started on 28 August 2010 and finish with the championship final on 28 May 2011, interrupted by a winter break from December to late February. Cold weather and heavy snow falls however meant that the last game before the winter break was played already on 6 November 2010.
The 2011–12 Rugby-Bundesliga was the 41st edition of this competition and the 92nd edition of the German rugby union championship. In the Rugby-Bundesliga, the first division, ten teams played a home-and-away season with semi-finals and a final between the top four teams at the end. The season started on 27 August 2010 and finished with the championship final on 5 May 2012, interrupted by a winter break from mid-December to late February. The league's top try scorer was Caine Elisara for the second year running while Luke James Muggeridge took out the honours of best points scorer for the first time. Both are from New Zealand and played for Heidelberger RK.
The 2012–13 Rugby-Bundesliga was the 42nd edition of this competition and the 93rd edition of the German rugby union championship. In the Rugby-Bundesliga, twenty-two teams played in, initially, four regional divisions, the first stage of the competition. The season started on 25 August 2012 and finished with the championship final on 15 June 2013, interrupted by a winter break from 25 November to 3 March. The regular season finished on Wednesday 1 May and the play-offs started on the following weekend, 4 May, and the German championship final was held on 15 June 2013.
