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Rugby Europe statement: Georgia versus Russia fixture

Russia claim a lineout against Portugal in front of 12,000 fans at Kaliningrad Stadium (Photo by Anastasia Osipova/Russian Rugby Union)

Rugby Europe has taken the decision to postpone the upcoming Georgia versus Russia fixture in the Rugby Europe Championship.

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Russia currently sit fourth in the Europe Rugby Championship log, having lost both of their opening games against Spain and Romania.

It is speculated that aside from the potential logistical issues due to the burgeoning conflict in Ukraine, there were concerns for the safety of Russian nationals entering the country.

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A statement reads: “Considering the current situation and to preserve the health and safety of all players and officials, Rugby Europe has decided to postpone the game between Georgia and Russia scheduled to take place on February 27th in Tbilisi, Georgia and to cancel the Snow Rugby Championship scheduled to take place on February 27th and 28th in Moscow, Russia.

“The game between Spain and Russia in the Women’s Rugby Europe Championship scheduled on February 26th in Madrid, Spain, is currently maintained.”

“We will be making no further comment at this time on this matter.”

Many online are calling for the Russian team to be removed from the competition altogether. The Russian Rugby Union have not yet commented on the matter.

Earlier in the day, the Georgian Rugby Union’s official Twitter account posted a promotion for the fixture, with the twist that it was written in the Ukrainian language. The post was quickly deleted.

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https://twitter.com/KasrashviliM/status/1496172062003666947

Georgian fans booed the singing of the Russian national anthem in 2010 in a match that relocated to Turkey following the 2008 Russo-Georgian war.

It is undoubtedly rugby union’s most legitimately bitter rivalry and one that is typically the most well-attended home fixture for Georgia, regularly attracting crowds of 60,000 people to Tblisi.

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

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Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

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