Russian rugby league at crisis point

Funny that rugby league is still going in russia and not on the bones of its' arse like so many predicted here.Russian Rugby union won't win a game at the rugby world cup and what coaching has henry paul ever done.The russian rugby union in moscow has more money than brains.

SO RUGBY LEAGUE IN RUSSIA DEAD??

Welsh Super League club Crusaders RL made an approach to sign Powell in 2010, but the offer was rejected.[10] Powell's then agent Mike Burton stated that Powell had a year left on his contract with Cardiff and that he would be honouring it,[11] but Powell then parted company with Burton.[12][13][14] Cardiff Blues wanted £60,000 in compensation from the Crusaders to release Powell from his contract.[15] Powell has stated that he is interested in switching to rugby league and played as a 14 year old.[16] The Crusaders are interested in signing him for the 2010 season although he stated he would be interested playing in the next year or two and still has ambitions to represent Wales in rugby union.[17] The Crusaders have made an official offer of £240,000.[18] Powell's new agent Emmanuel Palardino has since confirmed that Powell will not be joining the Crusaders next season, but he still remains a target for Super League clubs.[19]

Dave based on what?,Newton's Law! Uncle Rupert's dream dragged the code back,and gave the others a leg in.As far as meaningful intnl comps are concerned ,well start with the 4 nations, 2013 world cup,the European Cup tournament,the Pacific Cup.If that is not an example of trying to grow the game,then I will give mine to the cat.Rupert doesn't set the calendar,the officials do. Back on topic,relating to the subject of russian rugby League in April edition of rugby league Review,as a result of Tas Baiteri's recent visit to assess the situation.. "Rasul Sharipov runs the Defence forces section of the Rugby League in Russia and this is a great way to expand the sport in the country Each year in the competition we had no less than 30 teams participate from the country's military institutions.The competiton is played in two phases.A prelim stage where 12 of the military districts play local competitions.Then a final stage where the winners of these districts play each other said Sharipov." Sharipov has submitted papers to re register Rugby league with the Russian Govt as the National fed of Rgby League Russia.There are aslo two other groups led by Mr Tatouriyan and Mr Eremin.these groups have 7 and 6 teams respectively. With teams in Moscow,the military,student teams in Rostov on Don and teams in st Petersburg,rugby league is definitely not dead in Russia" The game is now amateur.so it is felt the talent may be able to develop in a more structured way on the domestic scene. Don't worry there will be more of Uncle Rupert's money coming our way in the next Tv contract.

Crap! An article from the BBC said 26,000 tickets were sold for it and, that 40,000 were expected. "A crowd of 16,000 watched the local team play a British students side last year. Russia are keen to take on the world's best And on Friday the US will play a full Russian team in Moscow with a crowd of 40,000 expected - 26,000 tickets have already been sold." http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/rugby_league/2252450.stm

Big Al, Are you saying that the Papua New Guineans don't play rugby league?

The only chance rugby league had of having an meaningful international calendar is now gone with News limited. If they have accepted Uncle Rubert Superleague dream they would have been alot better off right now.

That is in fact happening.There will be a IC with no News Ltd,and as the saying goes 'watch this space"

Cmon you guys , its only when League becomes independent of the self Interests of Sky ,the NRL and ESL that it can ever move forward Internationaly.

Don't worry Davey,I have a feeling it will work out in Russia,despite you saying you don't predict the future which you again just did.

LH if you look further down the thread at Total RL,you will note positive comments (including grassroots work) by the respected Cliff Spracklen who is the "source' of what is going on in the game in France.Via his contacts and the fact he spends the best part of his life living there. He also writes for Rugby League World and in April 2010 issue discussing the Marseilles area " With the development work being done by Point Sud in Marseille,Patrice Rodriguez,the head of the Pole Espoirs at salon and by Bouches du rhone Development Officers Regis Bangoura and jeremy Blanchecotte,the sport is continuing to grow.Indeed new ecoles de Rugby started this season at arles,Lambesc,near Aix en Provence,and Mouries les Alpilles ,as a result" So whilst there may well be areas that are falling in numbers,others are following the upward trend. A sign of the times,also is they are not losing the numbers of players to ru,that they did in the past.

Things aren't looking good in French rugby league as well according to this poster. http://www.totalrl.com/index.php?showtopic=199482 HI wellsey, I have been here for over ten yrs and league is suffering badly, a friend of mine coaches a jnr side and because there are not enough jnrs to make up teams here the jnrs ages range from 16 to 20. Needless to say when youhave a team of 16 yr olds playing 19 /20 yr olds its not good. I'll tell you why everybody wants to play in england for the simple reason that league isn't evolving here as it should be, its going backwards , there is no community spirit if you like amongst clubs, they all do as they like only to benefit their club. Toulouse don't give a f.... about french league, their whole agenda is personal and their president has crucified a lot of good people hence the bad feeling towards the success of toulouse. Lets take lezignan, grand final winners the last 2 yrs, a very good first grade side , they have so many jnrs that they have 2 sides in the jnr competition ,they would be a better bet for the future rugby league in france, the whole town follows them and they often have 2000 spectators to a local derby say with either limoux or carcassonne. NIcolas larrat is a lawyer and president of the FFR XIII personally i don't know how much time he has on his hands to really develop league here? What i would like to see is an englishmen or australian employed full_time here to develop the game , something drastically needs to change otherwise league will not get the sponsership needed to survive , the league clubs in the Aude are slightly worried about , Carcassonne , beziers and narbonne all playing second division pro rugby so close to them, they will attract sponsership giving less to league. I have a friend at carcassonne and he told me every saturday there are over 100 kiddies learning union, rugby league hasn't got the means or manpower to fight this. And after the 6 nations success albeit a dour game league cant take a trick. Everytime the catalans or toulouse loose , all the followers start blaming the referrees and their remarks are full of hatred, really thet have no idea what respect and discipline mean. To finish off on this,most french rugby league clubs are run by old retired undisciplined men, the players are undisciplined , the crowds abuse and abuse, the french in general are undisciplined bring all that to a respecctfull english culture where discipline and learning go hand in hand there is bound to be some friction,. The english and french don't get along, never have and never will for me the french need to sort out their own backyard and quickly, est

Yeah it's because Lokomotive Moscow's owner (think Klebanov) sabotaged the running of the sport for years (driving out Dinamo Moscow's very rich owner, who was supporting RL a lot, to RU) just so Lokomotive could win everything and get all their players and coach in the national side, then got bored and switched to RU, thus it's in a terrible state. The Russian Rugby League Federation have effectively folded and the new Russian Rugby League Clubs Association has been formed by Vereya Bears (who quit the league last year to play military teams in protest at Lokomotive). It's not likely to fold, but expect it to be a small league (up to 7 but more likely 4-5 teams) will all bar the St Petersburg club based in Moscow). Though the military are still keen on rugby league and seem to have a lot of teams playing about 2 matches a year. Russia aren't entering the international tournaments this year but are hosting a 7s or 9s tournament with Estonia and USA among the invited teams. They've still been guaranteed a spot in the European World Cup qualifier next year (as have Italy who pulled out of the Shield), whereas teams like Germany, Czech Republic and Ukraine who enter these tournaments are excluded from the world cup qualifier. (Lebanon and Serbia being the other 2 in a 4 team qualifier to be held next year, winner qualifies). Was inevitable this would happen since Dinamo were driven out Russian RL has been in a rot, funny to think at one time it was a similar size to RU (before the latter grew as well) http://www.fira-aer-rugby.com/forum2007/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=3385

Anon Amen to that.

Whats that got to do with League in Russia? Take you code war rubbish elsewhere.

Looks like Superleague club Harlequins has been guilty of posting faking crowds numbers for their free fo all crowds on their last game against Hudderfields.

Saakashvili Awards Rugby Team for Beating Russia Civil Georgia, Tbilisi / 22 Mar.'10 / 00:48 President Saakashvili awarded on Sunday each member of Georgia's rugby team with Order of Honor after beating Russia 36-8 in the last round of the European Nations Cup to secure top spot in division one. Both Georgia and Russia had already qualified for the next year's World Cup in New Zealand even before Saturday's match, with Georgia finishing with 27 points in the group, followed by Russia with 25 points. Speaking at a meeting with players from the national team in the presidential palace, Saakashvili thanked the team for dedicating the match against Russia to the memory of fallen Georgian soldiers. "I do not want to politicize sport and we should not have any hate for sportsmen and we don't have any; sport is about friendship; but not a single Russian television station reported about your victory," Saakashvili said. "Georgians have called the yesterday's match 'a match of honor'; I want to award the entire team with Order of Honor," he said. Georgia-Russia match was played in Turkey's Black Sea town of Trabzon, about three-hour drive from the Georgian border on a stadium packed with up to 6,000 Georgians. Davit Bakradze, the Georgian parliamentary speaker; Nika Rurua, sports and culture minister, Alexander Lomaia, Georgia's UN ambassador, as well as First Lady Sandra Roelofs were among them. The Georgians beat the Russians 29-21 in their first clash of this season's tournament in Mariupol, Ukraine year ago. Saturday's match was in the top story on the Georgian television stations with news bulletins covering extensively not only its result followed by celebrations, but also run-up to the match in previous days. http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=22109

Russian RL on last legs, Crisis point, should the RFL step in? http://www.totalrl.com/index.php?showtopic=199239&st=0&start=0

I hope Harlequins rugby league doesn't fold. It would sent rugby league back.

For the first time ever that I can remember the attendance figure didn't appear on Sky's summary screen at the end of the match. Why was that I wonder? The crowd definitely couldn't have been difficult to count. There looked to be a couple of bus loads from Huddersfield at one end of the ground and maybe 800 or so in the main stand opposite the cameras and that was it, not another soul to be seen anywhere in the ground. If they've had the nerve to declare a figure over 2000 then they are insulting our intelligence I would suggest. I know their poor crowds have been discusssed elsewhere Old Frightful but that was so astonishingly bad I thought it would merit a thread of its own. That must have been the worst ever SL crowd by a country mile. I can't believe they've had the neck to declare 2646. I take your point about the RFL's logic that you can't sell an M62 competition as well as a national one but the question has to be asked how can you convince anyone that RL has truly become a national sport when it's there for all to see last night that practically no one in London gives a damn about it. Showing that game and the obvious lack of interest in it, despite the visit of one of the best teams, surely did a lot of harm to the sport's image and credibility. The Harlequins were an embarrasment to SL last night and that can't be good no matter how well we try to dress up the situation. The RFL throwing money at them won't help here I'm afraid. Not more than 700 in that main stand. Awful The juniors are great (although I severely doubt the 20,000 figure) but the fact that they don't follow the Quins makes you wonder how much they actually influence them. I do agree that we need some form of a professional outfit in the south but they need to be appealing and a club that somebody actually wants to play for. I don't think the Quins are that club. http://www.totalrl.com/index.php?showtopic=199443&st=0