Original 8s Dominate Cup Weekend / “Perfect” Lackner “Among the Greats”
Season 154 / FINALS Matches
Observations & Opinions
From Harold Abrahams – Special Correspondent for TSS
And from Zino Stiles-Johnson – Correspondent for TSS
Kitzbühel, Austria – By Harold Abrahams – Special Correspondent for TSS
On Saturday, March 28, 2026, the Kitzbühel Hahnenkamms, the team with the strongest regular–season record, at 14—3—1, welcomed their old foes from Salzburg onto the Heuwiese to play for the Tyrol Cup to end the Austrian League’s 154th Season. While the match itself, which lacked any ebb and flow and was decided by commanding performances by Salzburg’s stars, cannot itself be called memorable or suspenseful, any Tyrol Cup pitting two Original Eight franchises against each other – and on a Meadow that has seen these foes square off since 1872 – endears itself to all who love sport at its most pure and time–honored. Salzburg, by the end of this year, was the better team, and the 10—0 outcome was a fair measurement of the Kamms and Edelweiss’ relative power to impose themselves on their opponents.
In winning the Tyrol Cup for the 25th time, Salzburg extends their lead over the Matterhorn Black Eagles to eight, having won three since the Black Eagles’ most recent Cup of 2019.
The Edelweiss took their place opposite the hosts after they finished in second position after a 13—5—0 campaign and, on March 21, defeated the powerful defending champions from Bern, 9—8. The Armed Bears led 8–5 late after Mule Brunner’s determined 3, only for Paul Lackner to sprint past the Swiss defenders for a 4 that produced the final score. The Salzburg players were profuse in their praise of Bern as “marvelous champions” who had offered a “spirited defense” of their title. Several writers among the press attending the match found it fitting that last season’s dominant team and player – Bern and Brunner – were narrowly beaten by the individual brilliance of this year’s outstanding star and a Flowers defense that became increasingly cohesive, committed and impenetrable.
That match – tense and decided first one way and then, finally, the other way, in the closing minutes of the 43 – offered all of the drama that the Tyrol League playoffs held in store for the thousands of fans who attended the two matches and the millions following via various media. For, as successful as the Kamms’ season was, they mustered only a tepid resistance to an Edelweiss team that boasted the two mightiest forces that the Austrian League put on display this season: the most complete and competitive Paul Lackner we have ever seen and that stifling Salzburg back line, led by Hugo Thurner, who must, surely, be only a few days away from winning his first Tor Medal at the annual Champions Night celebration.
The 40 and the 43 offered equally convincing evidence that the better team was wearing the iconic white flowers emblem on their chests, and the Kitzbühel fans, by the time the teams trooped off to their locker rooms for the Interval, sensed that their glorious season would see their heroes collect runners–up medals an hour or so hence. The score stood at only 5—0, a deficit that the prolific Kitzbühel offense, which scored 304 points in the 18 matches of the regular season, could seemingly make up in mere moments. However, Salzburg, in addition to scoring the most points in the Tyrol League at 311, fielded the most efficient, fierce defense in the AL, allowing only 161 points, or a scant 9 points per match.
And while Cups are won by the ten men on the meadow, statistics are revealing if not predictive. In Weeks 13–17, a stretch during which Salzburg passed Bern in the standings and created a gap to fourth place that no pursuers could bridge, the Flowers surrendered 6, 3, 4, 5 and 6 points – fewer than 5 opponent points per match. Couple that with a Paul Lackner who was running away with the Klammer Medal, and that equals victories for the Edelweiss.
However – and here we leave the world of numbers and return to the sinews and sweat of the players themselves – in Week 16, Salzburg came to this very place – the Hayfield of the Hahnenkamms – and allowed those 5 points. But, led by Man–of–the–Match Gate Daniel Herzog, Kitzbühel won 5—3. Herzog and Armindl Fasching dogged Lackner’s every step and limited him to a season–low 2 points, and Claus Binder’s serpentine run from midfield and 3–point skot produced a 5—3 lead that held.
“My message to the boys at halftime was to remember that win and model our play in the 43 after it. Annoy Lackner, play Locks and keep Salzburg at 5, pull them forward and then counter–attack and try to avoid that man mountain, Thurner. We thought with the massive home support, we’d have more energy in the final 20 or 10 minutes and reel them in,” explained a composed Kamms Manager Helmut Mair an hour after the match. Mair was in a walking boot supporting a tender left ankle, a result of a mass pile–up of men that saw Binder and Salzburg Wing Elias Hoffer tumble into Mair. Of course, Mair won a Meadow Cup in 2000 in his final year as a Hahnenkamm Schliessman, so the rough–and–tumble didn’t bother him.
Mair’s opposite, Salzburg Manager Peter Grünwald, had a different message to his men in the Interval. Laughing, with a bottle of cold water in his hands and an ice pack on a blooming black eye, Lackner said, “Waldie politely asked Moss [Farmhand Theo Mossman] and me if we planned to show up for the 43. We assured him that we would.”
While Lackner did score a 3 and Mossman a 1 in the 40, they had seemed subdued by a determined Kamms defense. And while the 10—0 scoreline didn’t leave any room for gaudy offensive numbers such as he accumulated this season, Lackner did remove doubts about the outcome of the match with a gritty run from 12 yards out during which he actually carried 235–pound Gate Richey Aigner across the line. The Legend of the Field Mouse grows.
When the final bell clanged defeat for the hometowners, the impeccably polite and appreciative Kitzbühel supporters cheered their own men and then, perhaps even more volubly, the triumphant visitors.
Among the 18,000 observers of the Tyrol Cup final was a 6’4” blond man with shoulders about the width of a Steyr tractor. Leonhard “Mule” Brunner – accompanied by a conspicuously attractive blond woman – waited to shake the hand of the man who, this season, reclaimed the title of the best player of Wiesespiel on the planet from the Mule. Lackner and Brunner spoke for several private moments, all smiles and claps on the shoulder, before Lackner trotted off to speak to TSS and other media representatives.
“What did Leo say to me …? I won’t repeat it all, but I thanked him for attending today and for the classy way he carried himself all season. He did say, ‘enjoy today, Paul, because next season, Bern is taking all of this away from you.’”
Perhaps. Perhaps not. A year ago, I felt quite certain that Bern was ascendant and would rule the AL for two or three more seasons. But today, I watched Salzburg hoist the Tyrol Cup for the 25th time on the strength of a powerful young Gate line and while boasting a man who, at age 24, is a week away from winning his 5th Steinwender, 3rd Klammer and 3rd Purtscheller Medals.
Congratulations to Kitzbühel for a wonderful season. As a recipient of the welcoming and warm embrace that fair mountain town provides for its guests, I and all of the TSS staff thank you. The Tyrol Cup is one of the great spectacles and contests in all of world sport, and it is a ritual and battle that is all the more grand when it pits two Original Eight teams against each other.
Season 154 has ended. Just as Season 4 ended, in 1876, with the Salzburg Edelweiss holding the Cup, just as it has 23 other years between then and now. The final congratulations of the year must go to our Champions.
Kitzbühel, Austria – By Zino Stiles-Johnson – Correspondent for TSS
Quite a week for the Original Eights.
I am certain that many readers of TSS do not support an O8 team or even greatly dislike all O8s, perhaps even on the grounds that TSS clearly favors the Original Eight teams who, in Klagenfurt and Villach in particular, and then through the efforts of the other 6 teams, invented the sport of Wiesespiel and enthusiastically developed it and refined it and played its first seasons and won its first Cups and Medals. You tire, maybe, of hearing of the greatness of Teddy Kogler or Max Steinwender or Henrik Grexxam. You’re over listening to the tales of Duke Bernhard being draped in sackcloth after a Wyrms defeat or Villach declaring “Fair play!” and forfeiting a match because their fans had aided the Huts on a play or watching Spittal players and fans perform the Schuhplattler after a win. Maybe you’ve never read Salzburg’s Original Charter or heard the fans in Kitzbühel or Innsbruck ring their cow bells as the Kamms and Downhillers play … or traveled to the Kletterpark or the Heuwiese … or seen the St. Leopold’s Day Game in Vienna or spent a day picnicking and watching the Summer 63s.
If those are all true, then you are missing everything that matters most about the Meadow Game and why it, alongside the English FA Cup, is the most pure and time–honored sport one can observe and love. Of course, Frenchwomen, love the Elephants or Chamois or Gantiers. Italian gents, cheer for the Riflers and the Bargemen. Germans, wear the gear of the Lederhosen or the Triskelions. Lovers of the Diplomats, stand proudly with the team from Vaduz. And people of Switzerland, embrace your Armed Bears and Black Eagles and Tirggel and Yodelers and boast in your 41 Tyrol Cups – 29 between Bern and Matterhorn! – and countless Medals. Pride in your town and region and team does not have to include a disregard for the heritage of the sport we all adore. But those of you who may bristle against the hegemony of titles, history and lore that emanates from those eight founding clubs – indulge those of us who chronicle the game and, in a sense, try to safeguard its traditions and mythology.
Long–time TSS standard–bearer Jacob Gelder, once told Harold Abrahams that anyone who could not revel in the achievements and lore of the Original 8 is a sporting philistine. I won’t go that far, but I also won’t contradict the mentor of my mentor.
Without the Dragons, Huts, Schuhs, Canons, Flowers, Composers, Kamms and Downhillers, there is no Meadow Game, no TSS to read, no nightly report on the men and matches you love, no sets of statistics you memorize. Without them, you do not have that glorious Sankt Moritz Pioneers hoodie to wear to university or those funky Ulm hats to wear that declare “I’m a Steeples fan” to any and all whom you meet or those adorable Männedorf bedroom slippers that, of course, look like otters. Those Hounds stickers or those Locomotives patches. You understand me.
So, indulge this reporter and TSS as a whole when we acknowledge and celebrate the wins and promotions that the Original 8 fought for this season that, fingers crossed, may lead to a season – soon – that sees all of the O8 re–assembled in the Tyrol League for the first time since 2010. That’s right. Sixteen seasons have passed since that happened. I know that for that to occur, your team may have to be relegated. Sorry … but I want it all the same.
So, well done, Kitzbühel, Salzburg, and Vienna, for staying in the Tyrol. Congratulations, Spittal and Klagenfurt – the Original Original – for winning automatic promotion from, respectively, the Alpine and Wheat Leagues, and good on you, Villach, for winning the 2–3 against an excellent Vaduz team to join the Schuhs in the Tyrol League for the coming season. Aggsbach and Innsbruck, both O8s, faced each other in the 2–3 in the Wheat, and the White Canons’ 25–5 win means they and the Lindwyrms will compete in the Alpine next season … a single rank removed from returning to their ancestral home in the Tyrol League. Innsbruck won the Tyrol Cup in 2014, and that generation of talent was aging somewhat by the time they seized the Meadow Cup in 2021. But their new core of talent seems potent enough to see them fight for promotion into the Alpine next season, just as they did in falling one positive result short of moving up this year.
Half of the Tyrol League next season will comprise Original Eights. While it is odd to see only one Swiss team in the top league, that one team is the powerhouse Bern Armed Bears … and one cannot imagine them finishing in the relegation positions in twelve months. But there is a feeling in the air, is there not, lovers of Wiesespiel, that tells us that in order to remain in the elite league, Füssen, Cortina, Trento and Grenoble will need to ready themselves to fight against not only their 9 Tyrol League foes … but history and fate as well.
ONE FINAL NOTE:
Abrahams: I don’t feel I am spoiling any moments of suspense when I look ahead to next week’s Champions Night dinner and celebration when I suggest that Salzburg Center and Captain Paul Lackner may need to make more space in his trophy case or on his mantel or wherever he displays the medals and cups he is accumulating through the genius of his play on the Wiesespiel meadows where he plies his trade.
He won the Klammer Medal easily: the scoring table below, which fans follow on a thousand websites daily, reveals that. Let us assume that his name will also be called for the Purtscheller and Steinwender Medals. Given his service to the game, the charities with which he works, and his carriage while playing, it is not out of the question that he could collect a Waldmüller or Kernan Medal, as well.
Mule Brunner was a more–than–worthy claimant of the more prestigious Medals last year, but Lackner reasserted himself after an off–season that saw him, as friends and close observers of the Salzburg club remarked, work with a fury and purpose that they had never seen from this young man before. Teammates and trainers tried to work at the same pace and with the same intensity as the Field Mouse … but they simply couldn’t. In one video that millions of fans saw, Lackner gripped kettlebells in his hands and launched himself up Eder’s Hügel, the steep hill a stone’s throw outside the Edelweiss training facility. Teammates took turns lifting the same weight and escorting him up and down the hill … but rotated out in exhaustion. Lackner marched on for an interminable, cruel amount of time, head bobbing to some song or other. When he finally collapsed after summiting the hill a final time, he let out a bellow like a mad bull, dropping the weights and sinking to the turf, legs trembling.
Well, that and everything else he did worked. He put on 12 or 14 pounds of muscle and became, by best mate Theo Mossman’s estimation, “two steps quicker” over 20 yards. TSS colleague Thill Brenner joked at dinner one evening that he had stood next to Lackner and thought, “I could uproot an oak tree with my bare hands as easily as I could move that man from where he is standing.”
Lackner scored a career–high 127 points in Season 154, the 7th–highest single–season point total in the Austrian League’s history.
The Medals will roll in on Champion’s Night.
So, where does Paul Lackner – 24 years old and King of all he surveys in the world of the Meadow Game – stand? The 2025 TSS Annual listed Lackner 10th among the All–Time Greatest Players, moving him up from 13th only one season earlier. Critics claimed that was too large a leap. We at TSS defended our rationale – you may read the debate in several places, including our website.
I am not writing today that Lackner should move up inside that Top Ten, any position of which is hallowed sports ground. The man occupying position #9 is Bernhard Brunner, one of the great Brunner men who have kept Bern in the Tyrol League and led them to Cup after Cup for generations. Brunner – grandfather to current Armed Bear hero Leonhard “Mule” Brunner – won four Kogler Medals, three Purtschellers, four Klammers, and two Waldmüllers … and was part of a team that won one Tyrol Cup and a Meadow Cup. One can argue that Lackner’s individual achievements do not quite match Brunner’s, but the Edelweiss have three Tyrol Cups since Lackner became a starter (at age 17) and star on the AL’s most storied franchise.
How high into the Top Ten can Lackner climb? Munich Lederhosen legend Sebastian König, himself ensconced at #7 in that same list, has an answer: “He is a perfect player. He has no flaws. He is one of the three or four fastest players in the league, one of the ten or twelve strongest, probably the smartest, certainly the best captain and distributor to his teammates. If you know the names, his intelligence and reading of the game is comparable to what Wayne Gretzky brought to ice hockey or Larry Bird to basketball. And he is probably the most competitive – even ferocious – player in the AL. He will certainly surpass my modest accomplishments.”
Can he become the greatest Edelweiss player ever? That would mean surpassing Noah Valeman, TSS’s #4–ranked player and the consensus greatest Gate to ever walk onto a Meadow. Valeman’s exploits and the success he helped bring to Salzburg are almost impossible to believe: six Tyrol Cups over 19 years, 9 (!) Tor Medals, 5 Purtschellers, a Thaler, 3 Kernans, 2 Waldmüllers … and the most iconic retirement ever, announcing that decision on the dais in the Kletterpark while lifting the Tyrol Cup for the 6th Time after the Edelweiss beat Bern 11—10.
It was a pleasure to watch Paul Lackner at work this season. And it’ll be a pleasure to debate his place in the Wiesespiel hierarchy as his career continues.
Stiles–Johnson: My final ‘Final Thought’ is a presentation of the final Scoring Table for the Tyrol League for Season 154.
** 137 Points represents the 7th–highest scoring total for one season in AL History.