Fira-AER

He had one run out for them early in the season, he has just signed an actual contract with Bordeaux Begles.

The popularity of rugby in Russia is growing very strongly! For three years have created more than 100 amateur teams.
June 10, Saransk, Mordovia Open Cup will take place on the rugby-7 Tournament .Assumed that the Cup will bring together 24 teams. This winner of the Cup of Mordovia-2009 "Energy" (Kazan), last year's winner of the ARC "VVA" (Monino), finalist of the last two tournaments Penza team "Bulldogs", "Legion" (Saransk), one of the leaders of the student and amateur rugby in the Urals RC UrFU (Yekaterinburg) "Tarkhanovo" (Yoshkar-Ola), ALDAN (Almetyevsk), "Varyag" from Novgorod the Great, "Snaryad" of Togliatti, Russia's oldest amateur club "Moscow dragon", "Hawks"(Saratov), RC "Scythian" from Chelyabinsk, "Empire of Sports School" (Penza) , two of the club from Volgograd - "Heroes" and "Volga" , RK "The Hammer" (Cheboksary) ,NizhGMA from Nizhny Novgorod, "Armada" (Samara), "Defense line" (Ulyanovsk), a team of Ryazan and Tumen.
It's almost all the strongest amateur rugby club in Russia. Welcome to the tournament!
Details and an application to the tournament by e-mail: rugbymordovia@gmail.com

Entirely composed from African students from the local Medical Academy.

Similar for Moscow Medical Academy, entirely composed from Malaysians, as is .

Welcome mate. I really like what you lot have done in Mordovia. If you can get 5k out to watch a team from Moscow play a French club, I think it's time to host a test match.

We are ready to organize and play matches between the European and Russian amateur teams. On behalf of Association of amateur clubs of Russia are ready to offer an exchange of players which come on vacation and to business trips. It will help an exchange of experience and development of level of amateur rugby with Russia

Please, tell contacts of the European amateur Rugby footballs of the unions and associations.

can somebody answer this question for me:

if Russia were to play Georgia at home with both teams at full strength, would there be enough interest to be a 30,000 crowd? or at least 20,000?

As YamahaKiwi mentioned earlier, Russia really needs a local team in Sochi to increase the popularity of rugby in that city. It is a disgrace that the national team is playing home matches in front of 100 spectators.

Indeed RuggerUA. And that's the foolishness of going to play an international in a place with no rugby. If a union is going to do that, then instead of doing it as a one-off standalone event, they needed to actually invest long-trem in the place to grow rugby.

It reminds me of Australia holding rugby tests in Melbourne. All very well and the crowds actually were pretty good but it meant nothing long-trem for rugby in the city until a local pro team was set up. Now Rome wasn't built in a day but with a top level pro team playing there are a number of high level games in the state instead of just the odd test match. It's creating a platform to grow the game and its popularity there.

It will be simple to avoid Russia playing before first week of March like in football.

Sochi is nothing like Melbourne though. It's a resort city like the Gold Coast, Mar del Plata, Antalya etc. Local professional clubs struggle in areas like these, despite having relatively large populations they'll tend not to have football clubs for example in their nation's top league. Indeed Sochi's second division football club folded this season.

And although official figures say Sochi is just over half Russians, in reality they're a minority. Remember the ENC is happening during the slow season there. In all it's an acceptable base due to climate and I don't see much changing in the stands.

However, the RUR needs to start planning marquee tests in the June and November windows where they can demonstrate Russians are actually interested in attending rugby games.

4N - It's pretty bleak when even a football team can't stay afloat. Ironically Gold Coast, who you mentioned, is having the same problem and could go under.

Bring on an all-weather pitch or an indoor stadium in a more rugby popular area! Nouse sticking to Sochi if crowd numbers are going to stay perenially low.

I think it's bad to do rugby, where it is not!
Rugby should be developed where it is already very popular, or where is gaining popularity! If we draw the match between Russia and Georgia in Penza, Krasnoyarsk, Kazan, or in Togliatti, Saransk, Veliky Novgorod, I think would be gathered in 10 000-15 000 fans

(I covered this in depth in the Romania vs. Russia thread, perhaps an ed could move that post over here so it's not lost, it seemed to be appreciated),

but just to reiterate: There. Is. NO. Other. Option. to Sochi. As yet.
Yes, Krasnoyarsk would get the biggest crowd.
As I type now, it is -19C (that is MINUS 19) in Krasnoyarsk.
Also, Rio de Janeiro is the same distance from Lisbon as is Krasnoyarsk.
Just thought I'd throw those out there...

There is no alternative to Feb/Mar games in Russia until one of the following situations occur:
* Moscow has an indoor rugby stadium
* Russia annexes (officially) the Cote d'Azur and plays home games there
* Krasnoyarsk is is dug up en masse and floated down the Yenisei then round europe by giant tugs into the Mediterranean to a position just south of Cyprus where it is stationed forever more.
* Hell freezes over (and the lack of frozen pitches in Sochi proves Hell does not freeze over)
* Global warming accelerates so much that Monino in February looks like Riyadh (the Russian government is currently doing its bit to help this option)
* A new pitch de-thawing mechine is invented from A. Pervukhin's face the moment he learnt of Krasny Yar's Crusaders ties.

Basically, until there is an indoor facility in Moscow or the ENC is moved to the June test window there is NO other viable option but Sochi. While Sochi's pitch and support are rubbish, the sporting infrastructure is world-class (as in Olympic gold medal winning world-class, not as in Spanish scrum-half world-class as I saw one of our posters say earlier, in doing so totally devaluing the phrase "world class" to meaning being in the top 200 players in his position in France), so Russia may as well use them.

And as for the crowd numbers, financially it's not an issue as gate receipts process is not the same as western unions. However, a trial process was introduced into the Super League last year which proved very successful and will be full policy this year in SL and national squad games and nationwide from 2013.

And we will see how that works in the June tests which last I heard were pencilled in for Moscow, Krasnoyarsk and one of Kazan/Krasnodar.

Also, hope for such big crowds against Georgia? I don't think so - remember Russia is the 'big brother' in the relationship, and therefore isn't as likely to be getting involved in getting the flag wavers and zealots along. And also, it would help if we actually won a game or two against them first. Five figures is well-obtainable, though I'm not sure about some of those venues...

Given the plans in place, the AIs this year will be where we can judge... And I can guarantee they won't be played anywhere near Adler airport.

Have you considered playing on ice like they do: http://youtu.be/TDBEGbi7Djs ?

Explain to me why Dinamo, CSKA and Lokomotiv Moscow play at home last week and rugby is not able to play in Moscow this weekend.
IMHO something strange is happening with Sochi's case.