Georgia takes out European rugby’s Grand Slam

 
Harry Kimble Roar Guru

By Harry Kimble, 21 Mar 2011 Harry Kimble is a Roar Guru

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It was the game that everyone waited for in expectation, the clash between Russia and Georgia. The match was scheduled to be played in Sochi, a Russian Black Sea resort just to the north of the Georgian border. The first time in three years that the game has been played in either country and not a neutral one.

It turned out to be a quite an anti-climax, played in heavy rain, the ground was wet and soft. The match never reached great heights.

The scores were locked 3 all at half time. Soon after the break, Georgia was awarded a penalty try after a Russian 5 metre scrum infringement. Georgia added another try and Russia landed two penalty goals. The Lelos ran out winners, 16-9, to remain undefeated in the tournament.

The only incident in the game was near the end when there was an all-in brawl but was quickly settled. The Russian commentator described it as “the boys letting off steam”. The same commentator called the game “a bitter struggle”. There were about 1,000 spectators with most of them being Georgian.

However, the main drama was Georgia getting to the venue. The team would normally go by bus but this time they flew to avoid the disputed territory of Abkhazia on Friday.

After landing, the team was held up for one and a half hours by customs and one player, David Kacharava, was arrested and placed in cells for three hours without charge.

Apparently, the accompanying media people were treated as terrorists and thoroughly searched. The team would not leave until Kacharava was released.

In the end, the Georgian Rugby president contacted his Russian counterpart who quickly sorted out the stand-off and the Georgians were allowed to proceed.

This time drag meant the Lelos had to cancel their afternoon training session and had to rely on the match morning session to fine tune for the game.

The other two Division 1A games went according to script. In Lisbon, Portugal defeated Ukraine, 46-24, though Ukraine put in their best performance of the tournament. Romania easily beat a depleted Spain, 64-8, in Bucharest.

If Spain had won, they would have gone to second place on the table, but they preferred to rest a number of players to prepare them for the Hong Kong Sevens.

Division 1A table

Rank Teams N° W D L Bonus Total Ptsl
1 Georgia 5 5 0 0 2 22
2 Portugal 5 3 0 2 2 14
3 Romania 4 2 0 2 3 11
4 Russia 5 2 0 3 3 11
5 Spain 5 2 0 3 2 10
6 Ukraine 4 0 0 4 0 0

The two Division 1B matches threw up surprise results. The two teams, Germany and Czech Republic, both top division sides in the previous tournaments, were both beaten. Germany lost the game in the first half through undisciplined play and was penalised accordingly.

After the 60 minute mark, they got their act together to play some good running Rugby and scored two fine tries but it was too much, too late. Belgium led 19-13 at half time and held on to win, 28-25, much to the delight of the 6,000 home crowd.

Over in Chisinau, the Czech Republic was ambushed by a committed home Moldovan team. Though the standard was not as high as the other games, Moldova took a 12-3 half time lead and extended that to 24-16 at the whistle, scoring four tries and gaining a bonus point. I

t was a small crowd of about 1,000 but at full time, each of the Moldova players was given a bouquet of flowers. I could not see that happening to the Wallabies or All Blacks.

Division 1B table

Rank Teams N° W D L Bonus Total Pis
1 Belgium 4 3 0 1 1 13
2 Czech Rep. 5 3 0 2 0 12
3 Moldova 3 2 0 1 2 10
4 Poland 4 2 0 2 1 9
5 Germany 4 1 0 3 3 7
6 Netherlands 2 0 0 2 0 0

The only other European game played was a Division 2B when Switzerland playing at home at Nyon easily accounted for Andorra, 21-9.

However. Andorra still clings to top stop due to its having played more games but any one of our teams could take the title, Andorra, Switzerland, Armenia or Slovenia. The other team, Serbia has no chance.

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