Georgia: Georgian Rugby Squad Prevails against Russia

The pressure was only partly connected to the Georgian-Russian rivalry in the European Nations Cup, a two-year tournament for the European Championship. The Georgian players were anxious to show that while Russia routed Georgia on the battlefield during the two countries' war last August, the outcome would be different on the playing field.
Both teams are considered rising rugby powers. Georgia, now ranked 13th in the world, is the current Nations Cup champion, although Russia remains within striking distance of the top spot in the group, and now sits in third place.

The two countries have a longstanding athletic rivalry. Last year, when the two rugby teams met, massive fights broke out at the beginning of the match. During the March 22 contest, despite the fierceness on the field and the political undertones, peace prevailed in the stands.

On their charter flight to the match site in Mariupol, Ukraine, Georgian players passed around a laptop with pictures of Georgian casualties from last summer's war. The conflict had prompted the International Rugby Board to move the game to Mariupol, a supposedly neutral site.

Security was high, with riot and regular police on-hand, although stadium director Vitaly Pregoda stressed that such precautions were standard procedure. In the stands, Georgians seemed to clearly outnumber Russian fans. "The Russian coach told me it looked like they were playing in Georgia," commented Georgian sports journalist Otar Giorgadze.

Georgians who came to see the match from as far away as Donetsk and Kharkov, unfurled an enormous Georgian flag and kept up raucous cheers for their national team throughout the game. The rugby match in Ukraine was the third competition between the two countries since the August war; the Georgian national soccer and chess teams lost to Russia in 2008.

On the field, the sides were more evenly matched. Russia took an early lead with two three-point kicks, but Georgia stormed back to take a commanding 19-6 lead at halftime. During the second half, Russia managed to close the gap before Georgia again pulled away. The final score was 29-21. The victory gave Georgia a big boost in its effort to secure an automatic berth in the 2011 Rugby World Cup, to be held in New Zealand.

Commented a jubilant Gia Nizaradze, president of the Georgian Rugby Union: "This is the best the Russian team has been in 15 years, which makes it a better win."

The win was far from a cinch for the Georgian side. The team has no field of its own and, a week prior to the match, it had nowhere to practice. The team also lost between 600,000 to 800,000 lari (about $361,446 to $481,928) this year in local sponsor money, as the global economic downturn hit corporate budgets, according to team coach Lane, an Australian who has coached the Georgian national rugby team since 2007.

But money woes are nothing new to the Georgian rugby players. To earn a living, most Georgian players go abroad. Only one national player, Sandro Todua, actually plays for a Georgian professional team. The majority of the team plays in France, while three play in Romania and two in Russia.

Only six teams in Georgia's first division are considered to be professional, although the sum is nominal at best, according to Kakha Alania, the coach of the Georgian team for the national-sevens, a rugby format in which each side has seven players, rather than the usual 15.

On the plane ride back to Tbilisi, financial worries seemed far away. The players, bruised and scratched, slumped in their seats, exhausted from the match and the burden they carried going into it. But as the celebratory alcohol was passed around and fans in the back of the plane chanted "Sakartvelos gaumarjos! (Victory to Georgia!)," the victory began to sink in.