Miskolc Steelers aiming to defend title in Hungarian Bowl XII against Budapest Cowbells

It all comes down to one final game in the Hungarian Football League – HFL – Hungarian Bowl XII. Last season’s championship game match-up will be repeated. The defending champion Miskolc Steelers will play against the Budapest Cowbells for the Hungarian Bowl trophy, Saturday July 8.

The Steelers areaiming to be the first team to defend its title in the HFL. Nevertheless, in the semi-final against the Wolves, Miskolc’s defense has not been the same as in the regular season. It was not solid in the middle when Péter Lenner ran the ball. The cause of it could be Eaton Demetrius Lamar who was not 100 percent healthy. It is still questionable whether he wears his cast on his arm or not in the Hungarian Bowl.

The other issue is the absence of Troy Rice who will miss the game because he suspended for targeting on Márk Bencsics in the semifinal. However, there are several great receivers who could replace him, like A.J. Benson, Anton Ushenko, Donát Nagy or Máté Jónás. The Steelers and their fans are counting on Vasyl Yordan. He became one of the key players of the offense. Moreover, the line in front of him will surely buy some time for him the give accurate passes. In addition, Lesiv Pavlo is ready to play which gives more options in the running plays.

Eaton Demetrius Lamar, head coach of the Miskolc Steelers:

“No change for training besides just making sure nobody hurt themselves in practice during the week. As always. I believe it is more what we do instead of the other team. If we execute our game plan we will give ourselves the opportunity to win. We take note about how they are playing and game plan around it. We will run the ball more since Troy cannot play. We have other players that will step up to fill his void whether it is me or some of our other players. We expect it to be a good and tough game with some things from Cowbells that we have not seen before. I expect our team to find a way to win”.

The Budapest Cowbells entered the playoffs hot and held their form in the semi-final against the Eger Heroes. Their greatest strength, the running game have improved a lot, Richárd Roják and Péter Cseperkáló became a great threat for every defense. Moreover, since Tamás Váry is the number one quarterback again the passing game got better as well. His new targets, rookie Norbert Zax and second year Bence Takács became the strongest receivers of the Cowbells.

The defense got stronger by the time and could put up a strong performance under pressure. Against the Wolves, the Gorillaz, and the Heroes it did not even suffer a touchdown in the last quarter. Not to mention Márton Németh even scored two TDs against Eger. If the defense and the special team remains discipline as in the last three games, Cowbells could avoid suffering touchdowns like the one in the 2016 final.

Karim Trabelsi, head coach of the Budapest Cowbells:

“Everyone is waiting for this moment. We worked hard in the past two weeks so I can state the guys are coming into this game confident! We turned our season around in the right time and built up our game consciously and in the semi-final we could put up a solid performance. In addition, we had had only fifty yards of penalties. It shows how disciplined we are. Last year we let the trophy slip out of our hands. We will not let this happen again.”