100 years of Romanian rugby

On 1 July 2019 Romanian rugby celebrated its 100th birthday. Here we take a quick look back to summarise that past century.

Early days

Rugby was first introduced to Romania by returning students who discovered the game in France. Their first recognised international test match was one with a Romanian military team in 1919 at the inter-allied tournament against the USA Army and French Services.

Romania playing their second ever international match in 1919 vs French Services

However the Romanians had very limited success in these early days. In 1924 they "won" an Olympic bronze medal in a tournament with just two other teams who they lost by a combined score of 98-3 (which was with 3 point tries so in today's scoring is equivalent to about 140-3).

Indeed Romania only won 2 of their 18 internationals before the start of WW2. Only beating the Czech Republic and Netherlands, but otherwise mostly losing to France, Germany, & Italy.

Huge crowds and Romanian rugby's rise in the 1950s and 60s

It seems unthinkable when you look at the size of their crowds now but Romania has hosted one of the largest ever crowds for a rugby match. In May 1957 around 95,000 watch the Oaks play France where the home side lost narrowly 15-18, which was apparently considered a big surprise at the time for the French who had always beaten the Romanians easily in the pre-WW2 era.

Around 95,000 in Bucharest watch Romania vs France in 1957

This was the largest of a few very sizeable attendances to watch rugby in Romania, and it was soon after this in the 1960s when their rugby began to really take off. They scored their first ever win over France on their next visit in 1960 in front of 55,000 (according to ESPN Scrum), and also beat them two more times in that decade in 1962 and 1968, and also had two away draws in 1961 and 1963.

Romanian talisman of the 1960s Radu Demian who was nicknamed the
"Carpathian giant" by the French after his big performances against them

Notably in the 1960s France won five 5 Nations titles including Grand Slam in 1968, and were the most successful side in the competition over that decade, so the Romanians record of 3 wins, 2 draws (both away from home), and 5 losses vs France in the 1960s was not bad against the best in Europe.

Old footage of one of Romania's wins against 5 Nations Grand Slam winners France in 1968

There are also photos from Swansea's tour of Romania in 1954 showing another large crowd of around 50,000 for a tour match against Locomotive Bucharest (where the home side won 22-12). So clearly these very attendances were not unknown at the time with even clubs getting large crowds.

A packed 50,000+ crowd for Swansea vs Locomotive Bucharest 1954

Also in the 1960s FIRA created a "Champions Cup", a continental tournament between all the champion sides from the likes of France, Romania, Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal, and others. It was basically an early attempt at something like today's Heineken/Champions Cup only the British & Irish team never participated, so it more resembled today's Continental Shield plus France instead.

Unlike today though where the Romanian domestic champions struggle to be even vaguely competitive in the Challenge Cup against some of the lowest sides in English, French, or Pro14 leagues. Back then in the 1960s the Romanian champions were beating the French champions.

The tournament only existed on a bi-annual basis for three editions. After losing the first final to Béziers in 1962, CFR Grivita Rosie Bucuresti (formerly known as Locomotive CFR Bucuresti) won it 1964 beating Mont-de-Marsan 10-0, then in the last edition of the tournament in 1966 before it was discontinued Dinamo Bucuresti beat Agen 18-12 on aggregate over two legs.

A picture from the 50 year reunion in 2014 of the CFR Grivita Rosie
Bucuresti team that won the FIRA Champions Cup in 1964

Gaining respect on the world stage in the 1980s

For the 60 years of Romanian rugby, with the absence of a RWC, their schedule was restricted almost entirely to opponents linked to the FIRA Championship (with some exceptions here and there).

In those first 60 years and 125 tests, only 5 were against non-FIRA opponnents. After playing USA in the 1924 Olympics, it was another 49 years until they played a test against a non-FIRA side touring Argentina in 1973. It took them as long as exactly 60 years to play one of the Home Nations for the first time when they played Wales in 1979 (and it still took them another couple of years after they had shown competitive results for Home Nations to award caps for playing them).

So it took as long as the 1980s before Romania could really get some more opportunities against Tier 1 opposition other than France. Considering the Romanian's record against the French, in particular over the 1960s where they were the best in the 5 Nations, it seems very likely that they were denied a handful more scalps over Home Nations sides on the account of simply never playing them. It is also possible they were denied maybe a knockout stage run at a RWC on account of that not yet existing.

Footage of Romania's away win vs Wales in 1988

However that was not to be and the Oaks first got their chance to play all the Home Nations in the 1980s. They beat Wales (after losing their first match in 1979 by just one point 12-13 to a team who were 5 Nations champions and featured 12 Lions in their XV) both home in 1983 and away in 1988. They also beat Scotland in 1984, drew 13-13 to Ireland in Dublin in 1980, had a 15-22 loss to England at Twickenham in 1985, plus picked up a couple extra wins vs France.

Perhaps most memorable for Romanian fans though was the time the All Blacks one and only visit in 1981. Up against the world's best, the Oaks were competitive in a 14-6 loss. The game (played in front of 30,000 fans) is remembered though for a couple of contentious referee decisions where the Oaks pushed over the line twice, only to be judged as being held up by the referee.

One of the controversial "held up" calls to deny Romania a try vs the All Blacks in 1981

It is impossible to tell clearly from the footage, but the Romanians swear that those were tries, and according to their legendary scrum half and captain Mircea Paraschiv, the referee Alan Hosie from Scotland, afterwards admitted he was wrong and was scared to let a major upset happen (the Romanians have only played the All Blacks once since then at RWC 2007 at the back end of one of those horrible 4 games in 17 days schedules and predictably wasn't so competitive finishing 85-8).

One of Romania's best players of the 1980s Mircea Paraschiv 

There is no doubt at this point though that Romania were the 6th best European nation and merited an expanded 5 Nations and the stage of a RWC to perform on. However unfortunately both came a bit late.

Decline in the 1990s and the early professional era

Romania were on the decline towards the late 1980s. Although there were the historic away wins vs Wales in 1988, France in 1990, and beat Scotland in 1991. They also were a bit more inconsistent and also had some heavier defeats over this time than previously, and their inaugural RWC in 1987 was not great with big losses to France and Scotland. As is well known the changing landscape of the country and collapse of communism obviously factored heavily into all this as well. Notably their captain and star player of the 80s Florica Murariu even getting killed in the 1989 revolution.

Over the course of the 1990s they were overtaken by Italy, and their competitiveness vs France disappear. Then in the early 2000s professionalism would only widen this gap between the major sides.

It was over this period when Romania suffered one of the most horrific defeats of all time 134-0 vs England in 2001. That match has often been used as a symbol of Romanian rugby decline (several British journalists were writing obituaries for Romanian rugby after that match), but whilst there is no doubt on the decline relative to previous decades and less competitive against top opponents, in reality that match was in fact a bit an odd outlier in just how bad it was. That tour was sort of the equivalent "Tour of Hell" suffered by England in 1998 or Japan in 2004.

The worst day in Romanian rugby history vs England in 2001

The Oaks may have had some bad defeats before but nothing like that either in the years before or afterwards. That match remains over 50+ points worse than their second and third largest ever defeats to Australia and New Zealand which were at the 2003 and 2007 RWCs.

In general though this was an era in the early to mid 2000s was a tough one where almost all Tier 2 nations saw a relative decline in competitiveness against Tier 1. If you look at almost every Tier 2 nation who was playing Tier 1 at the time their record largest defeats are from this period. So Romania were basically just like every other Tier 2 nation in this regard.

Rebuilding to some better times but with unhappy back drop

In the modern era Romania still have produced some top level players who had standout pro careers in France. Petru Balan won two Top 14 finals with Biarritz, whilst Marius Tincu and Ovidiu Tonita also played for over a decade in the Top 14 including also being part of a winning team at Perpignan.

Romania's most celebrated player of the professional era Marius Tincu

Overall the Oaks have had a pretty underwhelming RWC history. However in 2011 despite a poor few years coming in to the tournament where they had been surpassed by Georgia as the leading REC side, and finished behind Russia so had to qualify through the Repechage, Romania produced their most memorable match when Tincu nearly led the side to a major upset vs Scotland. Romania led 24-21 going into the final 10 minutes, but unfortunately faded conceding two rather soft late tries.

Romania push over to take the lead vs Scotland at RWC 2011

Following that tournament the 2005 U19 generation of players took over senior roles in the side and Romania continued to produce an upturn in results. Between 2013 to 2017 they picked up wins over every Tier 2 side apart from Fiji and Japan and became a major bogey side for Canada who they beat coming back from 15 points down in a thrilling RWC encounter in 2015.

Over this period a fiercely fought Antim Cup rivalry between Georgia and Romania emerged as the Oaks tried to regain their position at the top of the REC. Usually won by the Georgians, but the contests were tough and Romania did finally get the title in 2017 after near misses in 2012 and 2013.

Romania win the Antim Cup vs Georgia 2017

This generation was probably Romania's most competitive of the professional era so far. Although it was also one that came with an unhappy back drop not of big crowds but rather empty stadiums at Cluj, being totally ignored as far as opportunities to play Tier 1 outside the RWC go, terrible junior results for the past several years, and then being kicked out of the RWC after an eligibility fiasco last year.

So the 100th year of Romanian rugby cannot be described as a particularly happy one. More than any other RWC regular, there are major concerns for their future competitiveness moving forward.

Spain's surprisingly successful season

Over the past few months Spain have without doubt proven to be the surprise team of the year so far.

In the Spring they achieved their first ever 4 win REC campaign. This included close home wins over their two nearest rivals for RWC qualifying Russia and Romania. Beating Belgium and Germany with comfort. Their only loss coming away to Georgia going down 24-10 in what was a very credible spirited performance. Indeed if it wasn't for the colossal disparity between the sides scrummaging ability, especially in the second half where the Lelos won a massive 9 scrum penalties, including winning 3 scrums out of 5 against the head on the Spanish put in, that match could have been very different.

They followed that on their summer tour to South America they went 3-0, grinding out two wins over an improving Brazil and a Chile team who were much better than they were in the recent ARC, which were ugly matches but most importantly still wins. Then capped that off with their most impressive result to date, a comprehensive 41-21 away win over another RWC level side Uruguay, who had just come off a 4 win ARC campaign earlier in the year and a very good result against Argentina XV the week before.

Los Leones are now on what is their best run of results over 90 years of international rugby. They are on their second longest win streak, only behind a run of 8 in 1996/97 (and included no RWC level nations but the likes of Czech Republic, Andorra, Poland, Belgium), and also have now seen their World Ranking rise to an all time high of 17 (and could even be as high as 16 if Tonga beat Samoa in the PNC).

However most remarkable about this success is the circumstances under which it has been achieved ...

Most inconsistent selection in international rugby

In not just recent times, but as far back as you can remember, Spain have had the most inconsistent selection and churned through the highest number of players as probably any other international side.

According to ESPN Scrum stats since 2000 it has been Spain have used 312 players the most of any nation in the world. 47% of those players have played in the Santiago Santos era since November 2013. Whilst in the 10 most recent tests since the RWC qualifying (which has effectively been the start of a new 4 year cycle for Spain) they have already used 59 players and handed out 21 debuts.

The number of players used by top 22 nations since November 2013 (source ESPN Scrum) showing that under
Santiago Santos Spain have awarded caps to more players than any other team in the world.

The only time they recently had a relatively consistent selection over a sustained period was over that RWC qualifying period in 2017-2018. After that it was back to the norm of changing half the team nearly every match, with players constantly coming in and out, although the South American tour where 3 changes for each test at least meant some rare continuity in selection (although that will not last as some of missing players will return and the next window will probably have a different team again).

In their last 10 tests, Spain have used 7 different starting fly halves, the only one to string a start together was David Mélé on the South American tour and he is about to retire, as well as 7 different starting number 8's, whilst at scrum half only once has Santos started a player for two matches in a row.

Only four players Fernando López, Álvar Gimeno, Manuel Mora, and Víctor Sánchez have been starters in all of the Spain's current run of 6 straight victories.

Spain have for the most part been up against opponents who have experience of appearing at past RWC and with considerably more settled selections. This was shown in the differences in cap totals against their teams they are up against. In their wins this year over Romania and Uruguay for example, Los Leones starting XV had an average of 15-16 caps, whilst their opponents both had an average of 44.

Even if Spain do have some players like Mickael de Marco, or David Mélé who have much more experience than just looking at the international caps lets on, it still shows the difference between sides who have kept a more consistent selection and one that has not.

The only other nations who are typically similar to Spain regarding this churn of players in recent times are Chile and Portugal. Although over the past few years those two nations have, unlike Spain right now, hit some dismal lows, as well as equally churned through numerous coaches, delivering more the underachievement you may expect from such unstable selection with so little continuity.

List of absent players from professional leagues

One of the factors behind that inconsistent selection has been the patchy availability of some of the professional players based in France, which if you take props out of the equation Spain actually have about as many as REC leaders Georgia, although unlike them not always reliably been in the selection.

In the past 10 games, of those Spanish internationals in Top 14 or Pro D2, the players who played at least half of them were Xerom Civil and Lucas Rubio (6), Mickael de Marco and Jon Zabala (5). All of whom were not regulars at their club which probably increased their availability status.

Spain's leading Top 14 player Charly
Malié of Pau has still not played since
the loss to Belgium. Overall players
from Top 14 or Pro D2 have been just
16% of Spain's starting XV since then.

Others who played 20+ game domestic seasons such as Asier Usarraga, Fabien Perrin (2), Guillaume Rouet, Mathieu Peluchon (1) featured little, whilst Charly Malié, Marco Pinto, Fred Quercy, or Jesús Moreno did not play at all (nor did eligible uncapped players like Rudy Derrieux or Vincent Farré, or of course Samu Ezeala).

Overall in their 10 matches this season, 16% of Spain's starting XV has been Top 14 or Pro D2 professionals (average 2.4 players per XV), and there was only one such player in retiring Perpignan half back David Mélé in their starting XV that comfortably beat Uruguay.

A number of those names offer considerable top level experience, and if they had been available, would have very likely added to the team.

Considering they put it on the field so rarely, it is hard to know exactly what Spain's full strength first choice side actually is, but still we can say they were some way from their strongest possible lineup. More so than any of their opponents this year were against them. Russia picked their very strongest available side for the trip to Madrid, whilst Romania and Uruguay were missing just a couple of players.

Improving standard of domestic based players

One of the things that is deduce from this is the standard of domestic league players coming in appears to be clearly now improved compared to what it was around the time Santiago Santos took charge in 2013, or even compared to just 2 or 3 years ago in 2015 and 2016.

When his predecessor Bryce Bevin was in charge in 2012-13 and decided to ditch nearly all the French based players, the side went from recording a major upset win over Georgia and second place in the REC, to bottom within a year leaving their RWC qualifying hopes already in tatters.

It was then quickly understood this was not a winning strategy, and Bevin was sacked after just 7 tests, and the ship had to be righted again recalling the French players to avoid an REC relegation fight.

To think back then they would be achieving a 4 win REC campaign and an unbeaten South American tour with just an average of 2-3 of their Top 14/Pro D2 players in the starting XV was far fetched. Indeed it was not long ago Spain were sending their annual weakened summer touring side to a loss against Kenya in 2015, or unsuccessful winless Nations Cup campaigns such as the one in 2016.

On their last two trips to Tbilisi, Spain
have been surprisingly competitive in
spite of missing a number of players.
In past years they used to ship 60+ points
with weakened teams in Georgia (who
themselves were also not as good then).

This past year or so has completely altered the perception of the depth that Spanish rugby has available. If other similarly ranked sides such as Russia, Romania, Canada, Uruguay, or even the USA had the equivalent number players of note missing as Spain did it is very doubtful they would have produced the same results.

Indeed Spain with a much weakened side have produced more competitive performances away to Georgia in Tbilisi for two years in a row than a full strength Russia have for the past decade or more. By comparison when Romania were missing a few players on their trip to Tbilisi in 2016 they got squashed 38-9, whilst Canada shipped 50+ points on their last visit in November 2017.

They also beat a Brazilian side that in the ARC this year scrummaged past Canada, and also pushed USA away from home very close. Again with many more players missing than either of those had. Also in the ARC we saw Uruguay beat Canada with 14 men, and USA away from home, both of whom were missing fewer players than the Spain side that just beat them comfortably.

Spanish tenacity in defence has been key to the run of results

One part of this is Spain under Santiago Santos have become a team which, even not at full strength, remains capable of scrapping hard with determined defensive efforts. As a coach Santos appears to successfully manage to motivate his players, even some of the not so talented ones, and others who are just turning up for one or two matches, to play with heart and emotion for the jersey.

Throughout his entire tenure, even in the most difficult circumstance like the 2014 Nations Cup where Spain had about 30 players missing and featured 12 debutants, to date we have never seen one of Santos' teams throw the white flag and concede 60+ point maulings away to Georgia like in 2011 and 2013.

It is these gutsy efforts in tackling which have been the building block behind recent run of Spanish results. We saw this against Samoa last November, where even with what was basically a scratch team which had just 3 players left from the previous REC starting XV, and suffered four injuries in the bruising first 40 minutes (which Spain led 3-0 until the last play of the half) and were forced to scramble about with out of position substitutions, even if they did not look like winning they were still holding on just 14-10 behind near the hour mark against a bigger stronger opponent before fading to a 28-10 loss.

GIF: An example of tenacious Spanish defence vs Samoa in November 2018. In this match Spain
had an almost completely scratch side, with just three players left from the REC starting XV. Only
two of their Top 14/Pro D2 pros in the starting XV, whilst their opponents entire starting XV were
pros in England, France, or New Zealand. Yet led 3-0 until the last play of the first half, and despite
suffering four injuries in that first half still only 14-10 behind near the hour mark.

This ability to be able to show fight and hang in games against on paper stronger opposition was also seen in Tbilisi against a near full strength Georgia in the REC last year. Santos rested nearly his entire starting XV for the RWC qualifiers, yet up until the final play the score was only 16-10. Against all odds Spain were in range of an intercept away from an astonishing result.

Also this year against Russia, where again they were probably the side who were threatening the try line less, it was the scrambling defence that won the game with two crucial tap tackles stopping tries. On their South American tour, they snuffed out the late pressure in both matches against Brazil and Chile.

Whilst once they got a good lead against Uruguay you knew it would be a tough comeback against a team who has not shown the tendency for concentration lapses and soft defence like we have seen at times in some other Tier 2 sides (including both Russia and Uruguay).

It is still hard for a side with such little consistency and cohesion (8 different 9/10 combinations in 10 tests ...) to play with much patterned fluency in attack. However having that fight for 80 minutes in defence, along with the basics of simply having a productive attacking maul (which has scored them a handful of tries this year vs Russia, Georgia, Chile x 2, Uruguay), a few individuals (Gimeno, Munilla, López, Mora, Tauli etc) who have really stepped up over the past few matches, plus of course a dose of luck (charge downs, intercepts, odd moments like players dropping scuffed penalty kicks behind their own line etc) has been enough to get them on the right side of several results this year.

GIF: The attacking maul has been very productive for Spain this year.

The future for Spain, how much further can they rise?

This year should be seen as a big success anyway, but in light of having such instability in selection and various players of note missing, it has been quite remarkable in light of this the results that Spain have achieved on the way to rising to their all time highest World Ranking.

All this does though is beg the question. If this is what Spain can achieve all in spite of those factors, then what is it possible they can achieve it they did have all their France based professionals more consistently, and if they had the more favourable World Rugby funding the RWC teams have?

It seems we very likely still have not yet seen the very best possible there is from Spanish rugby.

If they had qualified for the RWC, and in turn got better WR funding to add things such as new specialist staff, kept the continuity they had in their qualifying run, and enjoyed the month and half training camp before the tournament (which for Spanish rugby would be an unprecedented amount of preparation time together), maybe we could have seen it. Although obviously that didn't happen.

There is potential Spain can build on this
momentum and, like their U18s this year,
become the main challenger in the REC to
Georgia in the 2020s and reach RWCs
with their rivals Russia and Romania
possibly facing tricky rebuilding periods.

This is without even yet mentioning of course that Spain have one of their most impressive generations of youth players coming up (who incidentally at age grade level have beaten their main RWC qualifying rivals Romania and Russia in 16 of their last 17 competitive matches). A few of those will be filtering into the side and be important players for Los Leones in a few years time (although they need to be wary of 7s attempting to steal all their best homegrown athletes).

Last year I wrote an article describing how both of Spain's RWC qualifying rivals Romania and Russia are ageing sides approaching the end of long standing generations and likely entering a potentially difficult transition period at the start of the next cycle following the RWC. And how this could throw the REC hierarchy behind Georgia really wide open which could offer a real chance for whatever Union that really got their act together to potentially reach a RWC.

At the time of writing though we did not anticipate that Spain would have done so well this year (in fact they have won at least 3 matches I had them as underdogs going in), as they too are going through a transitional period away from an ageing group that failed to qualify for the RWC.

Now that Spain have gained some momentum though, it is starting to look like they could be in the prime position to profit from a possible Russian and Romanian decline at the start of the 2020s and finally end a long 24 year wait to return to the RWC. It's still early days and a long way off, but with that goal still in the minds of fans, and with the future potential that they have possibly still yet to see one thing for sure is there has never been a more exciting time to be a Spanish fan.