Romanian Rugby

[dragos03]

7 Nations make no sense, why have byes for one team? Either keep it to 6 or expand it to 8, with promotion/relegation playoffs in both cases.

If one union is so weak that it would get financially ruined if relegated for one year, they don't belong in this tournament in the first place. Look at all the other unions who have managed to survive and not go bankrupt outside of it. In Georgia for example, the government supports the local union with money, I don't see why a much richer nation like Italy for example couldn't do the same for one year if they ran into financial trouble.

I believe that, no matter how much you would expand the 6N (8, 10, 12 nations or whatever), one of the current 6N will eventually get relegated anyway.

 

[amz]

100%. Italy must be secured in 6 nations. Expansion to 7th nation is best way. 7 nations with Promotion/Relegation to ENC winners.
Wooden spoon holder must play home-away match to ENC winner. Winner between those two goes to 7 nations.

Also 7 nation will give 3-3 home away cycle to member teams. 6 more matches = 1/6 more income.

Would be a waste of time and resources and probably the worst idea. The competition will be longer, will add extra matches hard to fit into the calendar and will probably hurt financially any nation that would relegate. Will never be accepted due to the fact that creates more problems than resolve. You can't develop rugby by punishing a nation to go down a tier for one year (or even more). Likely that nation (except maybe England or France) will feel the effects for a decade.

7 Nations make no sense, why have byes for one team? Either keep it to 6 or expand it to 8, with promotion/relegation playoffs in both cases.

If one union is so weak that it would get financially ruined if relegated for one year, they don't belong in this tournament in the first place. Look at all the other unions who have managed to survive and not go bankrupt outside of it. In Georgia for example, the government supports the local union with money, I don't see why a much richer nation like Italy for example couldn't do the same for one year if they ran into financial trouble.

I believe that, no matter how much you would expand the 6N (8, 10, 12 nations or whatever), one of the current 6N will eventually get relegated anyway.

State supported rugby and sport generally, except big infrastructure stuff and financing of sport for everyone, for masses should not be encouraged and should be only a temporary state for Romania and Georgia. Professional sport is mostly private everywhere in the world. There is of course some state support but lack of it should not affect it. Truth is Wales and Scotland are small and the relegation may take longer than an year.

 

[tommyc121]

8 nations be silly. i still think relgation battle from bottom and top of tier 2 is simple solution. the three teams likely to be in postion going down is itlay or france scotland itlay is worst. i would understand if itlay have improved but they got worst as georgia has improve so has romania. point tier 2 is just georgia winning or romania georgia succesful one so far i think there so keen for chance. make it more intresting if there was relgation. i like fresh start points are tho if romania can beat teams like england or wales ireland. or not getting stuffed like itlay going straight down. improved when things get hard simple. in tier 2 there not improving so when comes to world cup they do progress still but big gap massive.

 

[dragos03]

Oaks manager Bargaunas said in a TV show that the weak team sent to Georgia was the best available due to some hidden factors. He hinted that there is a deal between the FRR and the French clubs to leave the best Romanian players at their clubs this year, in return for full availability in the next seasons that count for RWC qualification. Apparently the plan was to have a more experienced squad for Tbilisi but the team was depleted by some last-minute injuries (Pungea, Fercu, Lemnaru, Shennan, Stratila and also Lucaci who only played for 20 minutes).

In other news, Valentin Ursache has signed a 3-year contract extension with Oyonnax and will stay at the club even if they get relegated. He had offers from Castres and other Top 14 clubs.

Lynn Howells about the Superliga:

 

[dragos03]

Romanian Cup results:
Poli Iasi - CSM Bucuresti 6-27
CSM Suceava - RC Barlad 13-22
CS Navodari - RCM Galati 27-15
Stiinta Petrosani - Stejarul Buzau 0-36
CS Manastur - CSU Arad 31-12

And in the evening match: Timisoara Saracens - Baia Mare 8-18
A suprising result, especially since Baia Mare played with a young squad with 10 players under 23 years old. But they were the better team and managed to beat Timisoara at home after many years. Hopefully Timisoara will regain their form until the playoff vs Calvisano.

Tomorrow Steaua vs Dinamo in the last match of the round.

 

[Jayatron]

http://tier2rugby.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/why-georgia-romania-shouldnt-always-be.html

Thoughts

 

[dragos03]

http://tier2rugby.blogspot.co.uk/2016/03/why-georgia-romania-shouldnt-always-be.html

Thoughts

While most of the facts in that article are correct, the conclusion is not. The author of the blog has always had a strong pro-Georgian bias and the article is meant to show just how powerful they are compared to all others in the ENC.

Georgia has indeed won all the matches against the Oaks lately but only the last match (even the author of the article admits it was against an experimental Romanian team) was a big win. All the others were pretty close matches, often decided by questionable referee decisions or the form of the kickers (for some reason, Romanian kickers tended to have a bad day vs Georgia, while the usually unreliable Georgian fullback always did great against us).

The performance of the youth squads is misleading. In all sports, even in football, Romanian youth national teams have awful results. In rugby, there is a big difference in the way youth teams are treated in Romania and Georgia. The Georgians invest a lot in their youth teams because their model is to have U18 and U19 players get contracts as early as possible at French clubs and develop there, since the standard of their domestic competition is very low. Romania has a stronger professional domestic league and player development actually takes place at that level (yesterday in the domestic league derby, Baia Mare beat Timisoara Saracens with a squad that included 10 U23 Romanian players). Young Romanian players actually develop later than others and many top players like Ovidiu Tonita or the Ursache brothers actually started to play rugby when they were 17-18 years old. Romanian youth national teams are not considered important, they barely train together for one week before major tournaments and don't even have a dedicated coach.

Youth results are not indicative of future senior performances anyway. Georgia U18 was just trashed 42-0 by France U18, does this mean there is such a huge gap between them? Of course not. Same when England U20 beat Wales U20 67-7 two years ago.

The blog article further presents some false data. For example that Romania's highest attendance in recent years was 6000 when there were actually 8000 fans at a match this year. The 50 thousand fans at the match in Georgia, while impressive, are worthless from a commercial perspective since tickets only cost like 1$ each so the gate money barely covers the costs.

I agree to some of the other statements in the article. Georgia is currently better than Romania at senior and youth level. They have a great passion for rugby (because it's the only sport where they get decent results) and it's an important sport over there while in Romania it's a minor one that few people care about. But there is no significant gap between our senior national teams at the moment, as the others struggles so hard to make us believe. The 38-9 result was a freak one-off result caused by a strange selection, that wil not be repeated.

 

[Jayatron]

Always great to read the other side of the argument and with such a well written and thoughtful response.

The Georgians invest a lot in their youth teams because their model is to have U18 and U19 players get contracts as early as possible at French clubs and develop there, since the standard of their domestic competition is very low. Romania has a stronger professional domestic league and player development actually takes place at that level (yesterday in the domestic league derby, Baia Mare beat Timisoara Saracens with a squad that included 10 U23 Romanian players). Young Romanian players actually develop later than others and many top players like Ovidiu Tonita or the Ursache brothers actually started to play rugby when they were 17-18 years old. Romanian youth national teams are not considered important, they barely train together for one week before major tournaments and don't even have a dedicated coach.

Surely this is wrong though? The youth are always the most important team.

Also, a follow up question. What do you think the future of the Georgian league will be? Will they attempt to make pro or try put certain teams into another league, Romanian for example?

 

[dragos03]

Of course the youth are important and their neglect is wrong but we are just fans and the FRR doesn't care much about our opinions. They have only recently set up some academies and advertised earlier this year for a dedicated coach for the youth national teams. The players in the academies will only reach U18 level in 2-3 years so we'll have to wait and see if there will be any improvement... Until then, we have to rely on the Superliga clubs to turn those youngsters into useful players.

As for the future of the Georgian league, I don't think they can develop much. I don't think they will attempt to make it fully pro since there is no real interest from fans and I think that all the clubs are owned by the union (I might be wrong here). Merging with the Romanian league is impossible due to the big distance and costs involved and they are a rugby island. Probably a Georgian poster could tell us more about this.

I think they will keep their league more or less as it is and continue to send their best players as early as possible to foreign academies and clubs. A potential reduction of the number of foreign players in French clubs could be a major problem for them but I doubt it will ever happen.

However, there should be more Tier 2 clubs allowed in the Challenge Cup and the Georgians deserve one spot at least. I don't think the Georgian domestic champions or maybe a select side from their league would be worse than the Italians in the competition and it would surely help their development.

 

[RugbyPUBtbilisi]

Of course the youth are important and their neglect is wrong but we are just fans and the FRR doesn't care much about our opinions. They have only recently set up some academies and advertised earlier this year for a dedicated coach for the youth national teams. The players in the academies will only reach U18 level in 2-3 years so we'll have to wait and see if there will be any improvement... Until then, we have to rely on the Superliga clubs to turn those youngsters into useful players.

As for the future of the Georgian league, I don't think they can develop much. I don't think they will attempt to make it fully pro since there is no real interest from fans and I think that all the clubs are owned by the union (I might be wrong here). Merging with the Romanian league is impossible due to the big distance and costs involved and they are a rugby island. Probably a Georgian poster could tell us more about this.

I think they will keep their league more or less as it is and continue to send their best players as early as possible to foreign academies and clubs. A potential reduction of the number of foreign players in French clubs could be a major problem for them but I doubt it will ever happen.

However, there should be more Tier 2 clubs allowed in the Challenge Cup and the Georgians deserve one spot at least. I don't think the Georgian domestic champions or maybe a select side from their league would be worse than the Italians in the competition and it would surely help their development.

Club games gather 1,000-5,000 spectators, i dont think it is enough for fully pro league. all the great 10 clubs are semi pro.

There is positive moves, most of the clubs have own stadiums 2,000-10,000 seated. Others will be done this year because of 2017 U20 world cup.
Rugby Union doesnt own any club. Every club belongs to local Businessmen and Companies.

Georgian clubs coudnt participate in challenge cup due to financial matters.
Winner of Great 10 will take place in qualification from 2017, Government and Sponsors of Rugby Union gather 8 million this year and the number increasing annually.
For comparison there was 3 million in 2010.

None of talented players stay in Georgian league, and clubs support them to move in France. Georgian league will be weak for ever but clubs will get stronger and stronger.

I dont think it is right tread to discuss Georgian league.

Best way is Georgian-Romanian-Russian joint league with 5-5-5 clubs.

Romanian clubs:
Timișoara Saracens
CSA Steaua București
CS Dinamo București
CSM Baia Mare
CSM București
Georgian clubs:
Lelo saracens
Kochebi
AIA Kutaisi
Locomotive Tbilisi
Gori Panthers
Russian clubs:
VVA-Podmoskovye
Yenisey-STM
Krasny Yar
Slava Moscow
Spartak GM Moscow

These clubs can rise popularity in this International League, rivalry will rise, joint 1-2-3 places ***le and money.
30 million from 3 countries.
1st place - 5 million
2nd - 4
3d - 3
4 - 1
5 - 1
others 0.5
last 3 teams - 0.

This league will be perfect for ENC countries.

 

[dragos03]

Such a league would be great but completely impossible due to distances and costs. There are 5.935km by road between Timisoara and Krasnoyarsk and a flight search engine gives a flight time of 14 hours!

But we could at least start with a yearly match between the champions of Romania and Georgia or maybe a one-week small tournament also including the Russian champion club.

Thanks for the info on the Georgian league.

 

[amz]

The article has a lot of statistics but they're so much bias that I dunno where to start. You know how is said, 99% of statistics tell 49% of the story.

Firstly the poster is known to have a big bias toward Georgia and toward any Tier 2/3 team that have an Kiwi coach. Although the facts mentioned there are true, he forget to mention the entire story and only picks what he likes:
- attendance in last CEN was bigger than he mentioned; on top of that, rugby has much better competition in Romania from sports which perform at International level, club or national team (tennis, handball, water polo, basketball just to mention a few outside football) ; 50.000 Georgians may sound well but the price of ticket is abysmal (when they were asked more for Tbilisi Cup the attendance was like 2000 - 3000) and there are very few other options than rugby. Here you can watch 2nd ranked WTA tennis player Simona Halep playing near the stadium were Romania - Spain CEN match was played or a World Cup Bronze Medal handball team qualified at the Olympics, I doubt you can watch anything similar in Georgia; There is indeed a rebound in Romanian sport (all sports) compared with Communist Era but what is rebuilt now is on new basis and not with old habits which I think it's much healthier for the future.
- win at junior level vs Scotland or Canada; this U18 generation was simply weak and badly managed which indeed is a pity; it's not a general issue but I agree FRR will have to fix issues with juniors.
- as opposed with Georgia who have a national programme to send players abroad, in Romania club rugby is bread and butter and it's difficult to achieve the same level of centralization and integration as Georgia of juniors who play all the season for their club.
- there is a fully pro first league in Romania and teams on top constantly defeated Italian Eccelenza top teams. I highly doubt similar Georgian clubs can be near anytime soon.
- to bring demographics in this discussion is kind of silly since even with that it's unlikely that Georgian population will be much more over an quarter of Romanian population in forseeble future; also negative values are general across Europe and isn't likely to change.
- the margins were always small (but Georgia simply had a better generation) with the notable exception of this year match but while the Georgians had the strongest team available Romania have most of their starters injured, not available due to club commitment etc. It was acknowledged from the beginning that staff will try some young players (there were two debuts in national team at Tbilisi).
-

 

[RugbyPUBtbilisi]

Come on any normal plane can flight 6,000 for 8-9 hours. Its not too much. Enisei can base in Moscow.
I just think that our own pro league will rise new generation of Players and our clubs can become stronger.
Romania has 6 teams
Georgia 10
Russia 7-8
who is interested in local league, but joint league will be damn interesting.
At least Romanian-Georgian 10 teams league.

I know it is very hard but everyone will success.
More training stuff, more spectators, young players, TV broadcast. I think it could become strong league.

 

[amz]

Such a league would be great but completely impossible due to distances and costs. There are 5.935km by road between Timisoara and Krasnoyarsk and a flight search engine gives a flight time of 14 hours!

Agree, why to spend money traveling in the hear of Russia when you can use them for something else.

 

[dragos03]

And who will fund such a league? The costs would be insane. Georgia didn't even have the money to enter a club in the Challenge Cup qualifiers last year while the Romanian Superliga can't find an 8th professional club to complete the league.

But as I said, we could at least start with one match every year between the Romanian and Georgian champions and develop it in time.

 

[amz]

Come on any normal plane can flight 6,000 for 8-9 hours. Its not too much. Enisei can base in Moscow.
I just think that our own pro league will rise new generation of Players and our clubs can become stronger.
Romania has 6 teams
Georgia 10
Russia 7-8
who is interested in local league, but joint league will be damn interesting.
At least Romanian-Georgian 10 teams league.

I know it is very hard but everyone will success.
More training stuff, more spectators, young players, TV broadcast. I think it could become strong league.

Russians team from Siberia simply can't be fit in a project, it's not economically feasible even for richer countries. As for a Georgian - Romanian league I think you must first create fully pro clubs and than see if it's economically feasible. From 10 teams in your local league, a selection of 2 franchises from all clubs it's debatable if they can compete or not.

 

[Croket66]

Spartak GM doesn't exists anymore since 2013

IMO the best option is a 8 league teams :

3 from Romania :
- Timisoara Saracens
- CSM Baia Mare
- Bucharest Wolves (Steaua+CSM+Dinamo and few players from Cluj or Iasi)

3 from Russia
- Enisei-STM
- Krasny Yar
- Sochi Select XV (all other teams from Russian championship)

2 from Georgia
- Tbilisi Caucasians (all teams from Eastern part of Georgia)
- Kutaisi Select XV (all teams from Eastern part of Georgia)

Maybe a rule with a maximum of 5 foreign players + 3 additional players if they are from Eastern Europe countries

Travel coasts are very high but when a team travel to Krasnoyarsk they can play both sides in 5 days (example:Enisei on sunday and Krasny Yar the following friday)

I think the standard of the league would be really interesting (sureley better than PRO Rugby USA) and can attract some romanians/georgians who are playing abroad and some foreign pro players.

 

[amz]

- Kutaisi Select XV (all teams from Western part of Georgia)

Fixed

I won't rewrite what I already wrote about Siberia & stuff, however, why would Georgians would be interested in Super Liga? After all, their rugby is much too advanced now to be interested to play against Romanian club sides

 

[dragos03]

These are all great league formats, in particular the 8-team one proposed by Croket, but where will the money come from? Unless World Rugby decides to invest a siezeable amount in this league, it will never happen. For Romania, it would make more sense to develop a common league with Italy, since there are a lot of direct low-cost flights between Romanian and Italian cities (for example, from Timisoara you can fly directly to Bergamo, Bari, Bologna, Rome and Treviso) and the flight time is short.

Here's a funny moment of Georgian-Romanian brotherhood After a dangerous tackle, hooker Otar Turashvili is so determined to help Mihai Macovei that he knocks out another teammate by accident:
https://twitter.com/philousports/status/714080275794370560

 

[RugbyPUBtbilisi]

AMZ you seem like very angry. Nobody is interested AT ALL. It is my suggestion.
I think international competition between clubs can gather more interest in both countries.
Clubs from both countries will benefit + challenge cup spots.

Fully pro clubs are Toulon and Clermont and such giants.
Our clubs are semi-Pro, and will be semi-pro until we manage to raise interest in Rugby and take domestic clubs on higher level.

10-10-10 million from 3 countries is not hard to get. High winner rewards, TV coverage, 5-10K crowds, higher straining stuff, higher fitness preparation, coaches, young players, more experience. is anything bad?

That old "new" president Bill Beaumont will not do ANYTHING to help European T2 sides in Europe.
Calling to expand 6 nations is fantasy, we need to create everything.

Georgia and Romania together can rise local League, and create new Tournament by Inviting Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, Japan. Better matches= faster development.

Maybe we are rivals on the field but both countries are always mentioned together. Nobody mentions Georgia without Romania and Romania without Georgia. Everytime BBC or Guardian releases article about expansion of 6 nations, always mentions Georgia and Romania.

50,000 crowd came to watch 2 best teams in ENC and that show respect. That match made new record (russia 45,000) but it was all about Georgia-Russia relations not respect.