Jiří Pantůček and Jakub Zalud both bagged a brace of tries apiece as the Czech Republic beat battling Moldova 35-21 in the final Rugby Europe Trophy 2018 match.

With 13 places between themselves and the Moldovans in the World Rugby Rankings, the victory was only worth one-tenth of a rating point but that was still enough to lift the Czechs above Switzerland and into 32nd place, on 53.30 points. Moldova stay in 46th.

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Having lost all four of their previous matches to sit bottom of the table, Moldova took a surprise 7-6 lead going into half-time thanks to Sergiu Morosanu’s converted try, the prop crashing over from close range either side of two Pantůček penalties.

The Czechs failed to capitalise on a Moldovan sin-binning at the end of the first half but they came out firing at the start of the second period and scored through Zalud, the winger squeezing home in the left corner.

Pantůček brilliantly converted from the touchline before kicking his third penalty to take the score to 16-7. The centre then benefitted from a surging run by flanker Michal Križánek to score under the posts and leave himself with the simplest of conversions.

Even though they had nothing left to play for with their relegation to the Rugby Europe Conference already confirmed, Moldova refused to let the Czechs run away with the game and they scored twice in the space of five minutes to close the gap to two points with just under a quarter of the match to play.

After those tries from Mihail Diacon and Adrian Adam, the game remained in the balance until Zalud blasted through several tired tackles to score his second try in the 73rd minute, Pantůček converting to put the home side two scores ahead.

Appropriately Pantůček rounded off proceedings in the final minute when he collected a looped miss-pass from fly-half Martin Cimprich on the Moldovan 22 and strolled home to take his personal tally for the match to 25 points.

The top versus bottom clash in Conference 1 North ended with a 29-25 win for Lithuania over hosts Hungary. Lithuania’s third straight win puts them eight points clear of Ukraine, who have a game in hand. With Lithuania in 35th place and Hungary in 72nd before kick-off, the result made virtually no difference to the rankings.

In Conference 2 North, Serbia won 50-24 away to Slovakia in the battle between the bottom two. The game did not count towards the rankings as Slovakia are not currently full members of World Rugby.