Fira-AER

Squad for Ukraine announced:

http://rugby.ru/en/news/id_898/

Game allegedly to be broadcast here:

http://yatv.ru/uyiyui/

I'm too lazy to do one with the First Division clubs in - care to do the honours?

(In no particular order...)

1. VVS (Monino)
2. Dinamo-Energiya (Kazan)
3. Yug (to be renamed Kuban) Krasnodar
4. Marino Lokomotiv (Moscow)
5. South Tushino (Moscow)
6. Narvskaya Zastava (St. Petersburg)
7. Varyag (Veliky Novgorod)
8. Zelenograd (Moscow)

PS. Appreciate it might hard to show on that map, but Monino is not in Moscow.

Rebels lock Adam Byrnes has been cited for alleged foul play during the Super Rugby clash with the Waratahs on Friday.

Byrnes, who played for Russia in last year's World Cup, is alleged to have contravened Law 10.4 (m) Acts contrary to good sportsmanship – making contact with the eye.

Referee Bryce Lawrence issued a 'White Card' and put the alleged incident on report for a citing commissioner review following a complaint from the Waratahs Captain Daniel Halangahu that Waratahs teammate Tom Carter had allegedly been eye gauged shortly before scoring his second try.

The citing is to be considered in the first instance by SANZAR Duty Judicial Officer Mike Heron

VVA and Spartak played each other in a training match. Some good shots here.

Azerbaijan's Eldar Nasrullaev is his national jersey and Georgian shorts.

It was a friendly played in snowy conditions, so uniform regulations were not enforced. )

Dynamo Moscow (of all teams) to play Sale Jets in Manchester on April 2.

What is Dynamo Moscow? a Moscow Select XV? including VVA?

'Of all' is an English expression, meaning who you least expect.

Dynamo were formerly a club with big ambitions. They switched to rugby league in the early 1990s and were fully professional with a millionaire's backing, Kiril Kulemin came to Agen from them. They were one of the first clubs to switch back to RU about six years ago but their finances never really came through. They've been playing a mix of sevens and lower level XVs since (and I believe they continued to run a youth RL side).

The Dynamo sports club is historically a big name that sort of went out of fashion but they're building a massive new complex in Moscow for football, basketball and ice hockey. In the plans it was stated the field will be suitable for rugby (and American football oddly), so who knows what's in store?

In fact this thread has been running so long I believe some of these events are covered on the first few pages!

Ok, thank you 4N!
So Sale Sharks will play against a club who is not in Super League or First Division...
I hope Dynamo is ambitious, Moscow city need a big club as VVA, Krasny Yar and Enisey

This is a strange news about Dynamo. The current team is based on the existing rugby school in Cherkizovo (and called Dynamo for some historical reasons, not sure about the copyright). The senior team plays in Moscow 2nd division and is composed from the 21-23 years old players. As they are not enough in numbers, they made an association with another rugby school having a number of people not able to play for junior teams anymore, Dolgorpudny (Moscow outskirts). As far as I know, there is no real financing nor amateur structure financed by the players, as in some other Moscow based teams.

The team to watch out this year in Moscow will be for sure Fili, which recovered their former player and coach Sergey Lysko, who was with Slava last two years. They also enrolled 7-8 new players,including best elements from Lokomotiv, a former league turned sevens club which lost its financing last year.

The other thing is they're not playing Sale Sharks, but Sale Jets. This might be Sale's 2nd team which would still be far too strong but then again it may just be a lower level local club. Eg There are plenty of clubs with Leicester in the title which are just local clubs and have nothing to do with the Leicester Tigers.

Sale Jets are a team which play in the Premiership A League Northern Division. They are also associated with Sale RFC which is the amateur/semi pro team that still play at the old Heywood Road stadium in the South Lancashire & Cheshire Division 1. However they are a part of Sale Sharks setup, as a team for academy players (U19s) and 2nd teamers to give them meaningful games, I think Cobilas had a couple of run outs for the Jets before stepping up to the Sharks squad. So it won't necessarily be a really strong team, depending which players they select.

Karolis Navickas (former VVA lock) plays for the Jets
Vadim Cobilas and Andrey Ostrikov played some games too

BTW, with quite a few games now having been held in Sochi, has there been any action to actually get a Sochi team set up? If there was a decent local team it might help promote the rugby and get a half-decent crowd to the national team games.