By Brad Duff
Saturday will see the Tyresö Royal Crowns host the Örebro Black Knights in the second weekend of the Swedish Superserien.
Both sides exchanged wins last season, the Royal Crowns winning at home 35-16 and then losing in Örebro to the Black Knights 26-20.
The two teams are coming off polar-opposite game one performances, with the Royal Crowns taking a 33-7 victory over the Carlstad Crusaders, while the Black Knights suffered a 48-12 defeat to the Stockholm Mean Machines.
The latter was a rematch of last year’s final, which saw the Mean Machines take a 52-8 win over the Black Knights.
After their Superserien season opener, the Black Knights took to the field again to face the Oslo Vikings in the Scandinavian Cup. Örebro walked away with a 21-13 victory over the Vikings, with quarterback Trevor Vasey passing for three touchdowns and just shy of 200 yards. Johannes Lindeus snagged all three of Vasey’s touchdowns, as well as 155 receiving yards.
Tyresö’s victory over the Crusaders marked their first win over the team since 2015, after losing both matchups narrowly last season, in two one-score games.
If the opening weekend’s scores are anything to go off of, the Royal Crowns are showing massive signs of improvement from last season; a campaign which saw them exit the playoffs in the first round after falling 35-22 to the Mean Machines.
The addition of ex-Nevada QB Hamish McClure is sure to be an impactful one to Tyresö this season; McClure is coming off a perfect season in Bristol, England with the UWE Bullets, going undefeated and securing the BUCS National Championship in what was one of the most dominant regular season campaigns British American football has seen.