The defending Austrian champion Dacia Vienna Vikings take on the Danube Dragons in a battle of Vienna Sunday at Stadion Stadlau in Vienna.
The Vikings narrowly defeated Danube 21-18 in the Austrian Football League semifinals in 2017. The only other time they met, earlier in the season, Vienna rolled to an easy 62-22 win.
The Vikings have opened the season 2-0 and have been dominant trouncing the Traun Steel Sharks 64-18 and the Projekt Spielberg Graz Giants 45 – 32. Danube defeated the Ljubljana Silverhawks 23-12 a week ago.
Quarterback Garrett Safron and receiver Reece Horn lead the high-scoring defending champs, while the Danube Dragons, under the leadership head coach Stefan Pokorny, have brought in quarterback Chad Jeffries. Jeffries helped the Marburg Mercenaries return to respectability in the German Football League in 2017 throwing for 3,045 yards and 28 touchdowns while rushing for another 305 yards and three touchdowns in 11 games. He was the second leading passer in the GFL in terms of average passing yards per game with 276.8.
Safron is the second leading passer in Austria so far this year with 442 yards passing and eight touchdowns in two games. Jeffries threw for 261 yards and two touchdowns in the Dragons lone game. Safron is also the second leading rusher in Austria after gaining 280 yards in the two games Vienna has played. Jeffries ran for 55 yards last week against the Silverhawks.
Key receivers for the dragons are Phillip Haun and Reinhard Knaus. Haun caught 11 passes for 114 yards and two touchdowns last week while Knaus had two receptions for 66 yards. The Vikings’ Bernhard Seikovits has 16 catches for 189 yards and four touchdowns in two games while Horn has 106 yards and three touchdowns.
