Northern Edition

Select Edition

Northern Northern
Southern Southern
Global Global
New Zealand New Zealand
France France

Russian captain to play first Premiership game since war outbreak

(Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

Russian rugby skipper Kirill Gotovtsev is set to play his first Gallagher Premiership match for Gloucester since the outbreak of the Ukrainian war on February 20. The tighthead captained his country in their 25-34 defeat to Romania in Bucharest on February 5 but Russia were soon banned from the Rugby Europe Championship after the authorities took action following their army’s incursion into Ukraine. 

ADVERTISEMENT

Gotovtsev returned from Bucharest to feature for Gloucester off the Premiership bench in their February 12 defeat at Exeter, but this weekend’s match at Kingsholm will be his first outing in seven weeks. 

A Gloucester statement said: “There is an exciting list of replacements with Ben Morgan and Kirill Gotovtsev both set to feature off the bench after time away with injury.”

Video Spacer

RFU Belonging – Back in the Game

Video Player is loading.
Current Time 0:00
Duration 0:52
Loaded: 0%
Stream Type LIVE
Remaining Time 0:52
 
1x
    • Chapters
    • descriptions off, selected
    • captions off, selected
    • en (Main), selected
    Video Spacer

    RFU Belonging – Back in the Game

    It was last April when the 34-year-old Siberian-born prop, who started three matches at the 2019 World Cup in Japan, was unveiled as a new Gloucester signing for the 2021/22 season, joining from Krasny Yar Krasnoyarsk. 

    Chief operating officer Alex Brown said at the time. “Kirill has been a consistent performer for Russia over the last few years. He is an extremely powerful scrummager, and dominant ball carrier and he will add to our resources in the front row.”

    Related

    Gotovtsev has played 16 times for Gloucester since his arrival in England, 14 times in the Premiership, and in a January interview with the Daily Mail, the former wrestler said: “I came to Gloucester in 2015 for a pre-season camp with Krasnoyarsk. I played some pre-season games with the first team playing against the second team of Bristol, Gloucester, Harlequins, Sale Sharks. Wow.

    “I played in the back-row then. It was beautiful. In that moment I thought, ‘I want to play rugby in the UK’. After the 2019 World Cup, I had lots of invitations from European clubs. When Gloucester connected with me I thought, Wow!'”

    ADVERTISEMENT

    Gotovtsev will now take his place in a Gloucester matchday 23 that includes Georgian Val Rapava-Ruskin as the starting loosehead. 

    Gloucester (vs Wasps, Saturday)
    15. Kyle Moyle; 14. Santiago Carreras, 13. Chris Harris, 12. Mark Atkinson, 11. Louis Rees-Zammit; 10. Adam Hastings, 9. Ben Meehan; 1. Val Rapava-Ruskin, 2. Jack Singleton, 3. Fraser Balmain, 4. Freddie Clarke, 5. Matias Alemanno, 6. Jordy Reid, 7. Lewis Ludlow (capt), 8. Ruan Ackermann. Resp: 16. Santiago Socino, 17. Harry Elrington, 18. Kirill Gotovtsev, 19. Andrew Davidson, 20. Ben Morgan, 21. Charlie Chapman, 22. Billy Twelvetrees, 23. Tom Seabrook. 

    ADVERTISEMENT

    Boks Office | Episode 37 | Six Nations Round 4 Review

    Cape Town | Leg 2 | Day 2 | HSBC Challenger Series 2025 | Full Day Replay

    Gloucester-Hartpury vs Bristol Bears | PWR 2024/25 | Full Match Replay

    Boks Office | Episode 36 | Six Nations Round 3 Review

    Why did Scotland's Finn Russell take the crucial kick from the wrong place? | Whistle Watch

    England A vs Ireland A | Full Match Replay

    Kubota Spears vs Shizuoka BlueRevs | JRLO 2024/2025 | Full Match Replay

    Watch now: Lomu - The Lost Tapes

    Trending on RugbyPass

    Comments

    1 Comment
    B
    BOBO 1082 days ago

    Short of a few column inches? another non story from Rugby Pass.

    Join free and tell us what you really think!

    Sign up for free
    ADVERTISEMENT

    Latest Features

    Comments on RugbyPass

    B
    BrownSullivan 2 hours ago
    Mixed Wales update on availability of Josh Adams, Gareth Anscombe

    The glow of RGB lights still haunts me. There I was, mid-stream, hyping up a Fortnite squad when an email pretending to be a sponsorship opportunity with the subject line "ENERGY DRINK COLLAB!!! *" appeared on my second monitor. I clicked— big mistake. By the time my chat spammed "*SCAM ALERT" in neon caps, a trojan had already ghosted my Bitcoin wallet, $320,000 gone, poof, like a noob disconnecting mid-game. My facecam caught the exact moment my soul left my body: jaw open, headset tilted, the background of anime posters judging me silently. The VOD blew up. Of course, it did.

    Pandemonium erupted. Donation alerts became panic emojis. My mods DM'd links to "HOW TO FIX CRYPTO THEFT" amidst banning trolls. My wallet? A barren wasteland. My DMs? A cemetery of "*F"s and crypto-bros pitching recovery scams. Then, a lifeline—a chatter named *xX_Cryptosolution_69 typed, "TRUST GEEKS HACK EXPERT. THEY CLAPPED A HACKER FOR MY DOGE ONCE." Desperate, I Googled them mid-stream, muting to scream into a pillow.

    TRUST GEEKS HACK EXPERT team responded like NPCs scripted for heroics. “Send us the malware file,” they said. “**And your wallet logs. We’ll handle the rest.” For 12 days, they reverse-engineered the trojan, dissecting its code like speed runners cracking a glitch. The virus, it turned out, was a knockoff ransomware dubbed “Crypto rush” (its dev had left a “HACK THE PLANET!!” Easter egg in the code, cringe). TRUST GEEKS HACK EXPERT squad traced its path, resurrecting private keys from registry fragments and backup clouds I’d forgotten existed. The return stream was record-breaking. I rebooted my rig, wallet restored, and titled the stream "HOW I UNBRICKED $320K (AND MY CAREER)." Chatters donated Bitcoin out of solidarity, and schadenfreude. Even my rival streamer, DrL33tGamer, raided me with 10k viewers. TRUST GEEKS HACK EXPERT? They viewed anonymously and left a sub with the message: "GG EZ.

    These internet Gandalfs didn't just fix a hack—they authored the greatest plot twist in my online existence. Now, my new website, Stream Vault, runs on a server guarded like Fort Knox, and I vet sponsors like the CIA. That fake energy drink company? Its domain now points to a Rickroll.

    If your crypto gets pawned by a script kiddie, skip the rage quit. Ping the TRUST GEEKS. They're the ultimate cheat code for catastrophe. Just maybe have a malware scanner in closer proximity than your energy drinks next time.


    (CONTACT SERVICE )

    Email, Trustgeekshackexpert[At]fastservice[Dot]com

    Telegram, Trustgeekshackexpert

    Email, info@trustgeekshackexpert.com

    Website, www://trustgeekshackexpert.com

    4 Go to comments
    LONG READ
    LONG READ Steve Meehan: 'If you start winning, it’s amazing what effect it has on all fans.' Steve Meehan: 'If you start winning, it’s amazing what effect it has on all fans.'
    Search