The RWC 2011 Russia Preview

By SK88
June 21 2011

As the nodding dog once said; Russia is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, wrapped inside an enigma and their rugby is no different. On the one hand they have a fully professional top tier split into eastern and western conferences with attendances that would make the Welsh blush.

In their twin rugby capitals of Monio, roughly 38km out of Moscow, and Krasnoyarsk, deep into Siberia, the derby matches in those cities often reach 10,000, they play a brand of rugby that is exciting and pushes the ball wide almost Australia-esque and have managed to produce a fly half in Yuri Kushnarev who is probably lower end Premiership standard a feat Japan has only managed through importing New Zealanders such as Nottingham’s James Aldridge but set against that is a series of very poor results which reached its nadir in a 75-3 spanking by Japan last Autumn.
The World Cup draws Russia in Pool C along with historic and political rivals USA, fellow Europeans Italy and Ireland as well as big gun Australia. Unquestionably the Bears biggest game (and only chance of a win) comes on their opening night against the USA in New Plymouth (Thursday 15th of September, KO 8.30 AM our time).

Rumours abound that Secretary of State Hilary Clinton and either President Medvedev or “Prime Minister” Putin will attend, hopefully so as it will give that game a bigger profile in the two countries and should inspire the players as well. Russia and the USA have a decent rivalry; Russia beat the USA in 2004 whilst losing the two most recent encounters in the last two Churchill Cups. I would anticipate USA continuing that run but it certainly should be one of the better games in pool stages.
After that the schedule for Russia gets significantly harder, and not just in terms of opposition. Despite Russia and other small nations having thinner squads they have to deal with short turnarounds and tighter schedules than their tier one rivals, who will regularly rotate their squad even with the relatively long periods of rest they are given. Russia gets a particularly rough deal fitting in all their 4 games in only 17 days, whilst New Zealand gets a full week extra to complete their games. This disgraceful anti-competitive fix is for the wonderful TV broadcasters who want to show the big TV markets (England, France, South Africa and Australia) on the weekends. This inevitably leads to them to getting almost full weeks between fixtures and drags out the tournament to a tedious and over long 6 weeks as the three knock out games must also have such periods between them.

On Tuesday September 20th Russia take on Italy in Nelson, Russia have recently gotten quite near Italy ‘A’, in both 2011 Churchill Cup and 2008 Nations Cup, whilst historically as the Soviet Union they were very good rivals with Italy, beating them five years in a row in the ‘80s before slipping away as the ‘90s dawned and the country and split apart. However when these teams clash the sheer power of the Azzuri pack will be too much for the Bears, as it was in 2006 when these two met, a large tonking of tiring Russia seems likely in the last quarter.
Five days later they take on Ireland in Rotorua which will be a special day for one of the Russian team, but more of that later. Russia has met Ireland once, losing 35-3 in 2002. Ireland does have a history of bottling these types of matches but I can’t see that happening in this game. The Russians have spirit and adventure but O’Driscoll and Co. will certainly fancy their chances of exploiting a weak defence, particularly off the back of lineouts where the Russian centres have a habit of going Walkabout and not in an Andy Powell sense.