Tuesday 29 January 2019

Is there a worthwhile future for the REC clubs in the Challenge Cup?

Prior to 2014 the Challenge Cup featured six clubs outside the three main European leagues. This was a point of frustration for many as there was a feeling they were selected poorly. They included four Italian clubs along with two others, the Bucharest Wolves, along with often a mid table Spanish side as the top side didn't have the money or desire to compete, or for one season a Portuguese selection.

For selection sides like Bucharest Wolves assembling with little preparation for two week blocks to take on much more cohesive club sides was not ideal. The Spanish side wasn't even the best in Spain. Whilst Georgian and Russian representation was being omitted despite usually beating Iberian opponents internationally and the latter clearly having some stronger clubs than those that were competing.

Meanwhile the Italian clubs were remarkably poor. Calvisano were the Italian league champions in 2013/14, yet still lost home and away to the Bucharest Wolves. Even Bizkaia Gernika in 2012/13, despite qualifying on the back of a sixth place domestic league finish still beat Rovigo home and away.
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Enisey-STM players celebrate their
win 19-12 over Worcester in 2016

The change in 2014 which introduced the Continental Shield and opened up the Challenge Cup to a meritocratic qualifying basis was much welcomed. However it hasn't quite turned out as has hoped.

Initially the Russian clubs which were full of internationals and strengthened by experienced players from across Eastern Europe backed up what many had thought. In their first European campaign in 2015/16 Enisey-STM took two scalps from major leagues in Brive (10-7) and Newcastle (24-7). Away trips were trickier, their worst loss was 55-7 in Newcastle, but in light of this season you would take that as a worst result.

The following season they also beat Worcester (19-12) and the Dragons (38-18), whilst only had one loss over 40 pts in their last match away to Worcester (57-14). Their average scoreline over the first two seasons was 14-32. They were winning more often than they conceding over 50+ points.

This was in the context of being new and inexperienced in the competition and with the disadvantage of playing matches in what is their off season and some of the "home" matches being played miles away in Sochi. It was hoped this could be a platform to potentially continue to achieve more credibility and experience on the European stage over the following years.

That has not happened though and their fortunes in the 2018/19 season took a dramatic nosedive. Instead of conceding 50+ pts just once a season, they conceded over that in every match bar one, with even Zebre thrashing them. Whilst they took some scalps in the matches hosted in Russia initially, this season they lost 82-21 to La Rochelle and 65-9 to Bristol. Finally their campaign finished atrociously conceding 17 tries in a 107-19 slaughter in Bristol after an early red card.
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Timisoara beat Italian clubs with ease
to qualify for the Challenge Cup in 2016
but their time actually in the competition
has ended up being utterly forgettable

Meanwhile Timisoara who also at the time had several experienced internationals looked in the qualifying competition like they could possibly perform similarly to Enisey-STM. They were beating Italian clubs in the Continental Shield by clearer margins than the Bucharest Wolves did. Rovigo and Calvisano were the top two teams in the Italian league in 2015/16 and the Romanians beat the former 45-13, and the latter twice home and away over two legs 64-40.

Unfortunately once they reached the Challenge Cup in 2016/17 Timisoara did not at all fare well. Not only were results bad, but they ended up with a sizeable fine for a cancelled match due to snow. There has only been bad news for the club ever since then, with talk of unpaid players and low morale, their main backer reducing investment, and players have been leaving.
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The snowy pitch that cost Timisoara
yet another €30,000 fine from EPCR

They couldn't qualify for the 2018/19 Challenge Cup on merit getting knocked out by Heidelberger RK, but got through after the Germans were kicked out for ownership conflicts. It was widely expected that they would struggle badly, but in getting hit by yet another fine for a snowy pitch, and then taking 59-3 and 111-3 humiliating hammerings against the Dragons and Bristol it still managed to be a total horror campaign even despite the incredibly low expectations.

The Italians incidentally in the Continental Shield have also done much to alter the view of how having four of them in the old format was certainly not selecting the best possible teams. In the 2016/17 tournament Enisey-STM beat Mogliano 97-7 over two legs, whilst Krasny Yar beat Mogliano 48-24, and Rovigo 42-11. Even German champions Heidelberger RK could beat the Italians and in the 2017/18 season scored wins over the both the top two clubs (Petrarca Padova and Calvisano).

Whilst the Continental Shield also initially seemed a good concept, it has been underwhelming. If you look at the EPCR site you could be forgiven for not realising it existed given the little attention it gets. It has been cut down in size with clubs from Spain, Portugal and Germany all withdrawing due to (likely) financial reasons and possible lack of desire to really compete at Challenge Cup level.

This year there were only two competitors outside of Italy in the Continental Shield, and one of those (a selection side from Belgium the "Belgian Barbarians XV") was hardly prepared at all and was a bit of joke getting annihilated 68-12 and 89-7 home and away to Rovigo.
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The reported crowd at Enisey-STM
vs Bristol at Sochi was a mere 100

These recent results call into question whether there is worthwhile future for the Continental Shield and teams outside the main three European leagues competing in the Challenge Cup right now.

If there was more money to be made either from TV, sponsorship, and a growing fanbase from competing then this would be a non-question. However there does not appear to be much evidence this is the case given the amount of teams who have withdrawn from the Continental Shield. Enisey-STM playing in Sochi drew an attendance reported as small as 100 and was not televised. The probability that Challenge Cup participation right now is a loss maker for these clubs is pretty high.

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Timisoara's 111-3 annihilation against
Northampton may be the last we see of
them competing in the Challenge Cup
For now it is hard to see any real point from the Romanian perspective at least to continue putting resources towards a series of thumpings and fines for snowy pitches. This is particularly relevant for a club like Timisoara who have reportedly been struggling to pay players and seem in little position to either produce or recruit the amount of talent to compete.

Some have suggested a return to the selection squads like Bucharest Wolves. They were not great (average scoreline in their 2014/15 campaign was 44-13), but at least did not suffer to the degree Timisoara have and get fines for snowy pitches. But again given the state they are in frankly Challenge Cup should not be the priority for Romanian rugby right now. There is also a reasonably strong chance such a side would be much worse in 2020 than they may have been 5 years ago.

As for the Russian clubs their downfall has been slightly more puzzling given a lot of their team getting thumped this season are the same players who were a lot more competitive only a couple years back. However one possibility is fact they are mostly the same team could be part of the problem.

They are not lacking experience, but the core of their squad looks very old and could just be over the hill now at this level. They went into each match this season with a starting XV with an average age of 30 or 31. Half of the XV against Zebre is aged over 32 with a handful veterans over 35.
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Enisey-STM have an ageing squad with
an average of 31 that has barely changed
from their debut Challenge Cup season

At that age a couple years difference can be noticeable and several of those players are probably nearing retirement. This is a side 3 or 4 years older than the average professional team, the rotational Bristol team that pasted them had an average age over 5 years younger.

This brings us onto a similar theme. It has escaped so much attention as Romania as it has not to the same degree or been as badly exposed, but Russia too over the past few years have also had a relatively poor time of late at junior level and been struggling to find the quantity of new young talent from those sides to come through and been relying on a core of older players.

Hence why at national team level they were giving a debut to a 34 year old scrum half (who was the 17th member of their U21 side of 2004 of which remarkably 8 players were still active in 2018). Also possibly hence why we see Enisey-STM enter the Challenge Cup this year with what is an ageing squad that has still barely changed since they first entered the competition back in 2015.

Again to reiterate the situation for Russia is not as dismal as it is for Romania but the general theme remains the same. They have neither been able to produce the level of talent to feed into their domestic teams, nor have they been able to recruit it from overseas either.

So what about the teams that have been considerably more successful in producing talent?

Georgia are notably the clear standouts in this regard, but it's also clear their domestic setup is not producing teams to the level to be competitive at the Challenge Cup. The Didi 10 champions from last season Lokomotivi Tbilsi have recently been playing in the Continental Shield against Italian opposition. Three of four matches those were close contests. If they were going to be competitive at the higher level that opposition would pose no problems.

Obviously the Georgian the domestic level is likely to be weakened with a considerable number of their players abroad, but that doesn't tell the whole story though due to the large percentage of those being props. There still actually remains some decent young talent which is feeding into the Didi 10. We saw this with the U20s and in the upset from the young fully Georgian based Georgia XV team vs Argentina XV in the summer (which didn't even include many domestic based international squad members).
roarse
Unlike some other leagues, there has not
been a really dominant team in Georgia
with the top talent spread across clubs and
5 different regular season winners in 5 years

But there has not been a really strong club side in Georgia owing to how dispersed across the Didi 10 that talent is. There are no one or two teams who stockpile the best talent and dominate unlike some other leagues. In November there were 8 domestic based players in the squad across 6 of the teams. Over the past five seasons five different teams have topped the regular season table.

That is in complete contrast to Romania and Russia in recent times. The SuperLiga final has been Timisoara vs Baia Mara in five of the past six seasons. In Russia it has been Enisey-STM vs Krasny Yar for eight consecutive seasons. Also been similar in Japan, up until this year Panasonic and Suntory shared all the past 8 Top League titles between them. That has made their league much more boring, but also meant a side like Enisey (previously at least), or Panasonic and Suntory (on paper clearly the strongest clubs from a Tier 2 nation) can be able to compete with low end clubs in elite leagues.
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Georgia XV showed there is some talent
in the Didi 10 with their upset win over
Argentina XV in the Tbilisi Cup last year

Also of course need to remember the Georgians have only been having top tier level youth teams for four years. It will take time for that to feed into the depth of the league which has virtually zero overseas recruitment to boost it. Although clearly the fact they continue to produce a good level of talent, puts them in a better position to potentially field a reasonable side in the competition in future if not yet.

The other REC teams to consider are the Iberians, who both remain largely amateur, and in some cases lack ambition, and have been reluctant to compete in Continental Shield with the costs involved.

A bit of talk has happened in Spain about forming a more professional league. However for now mentions of professionalism is just talk, and they are still miles away from being talked about as possible competitors at Challenge Cup level and the impression you get is don't even want to be either.

So unfortunately being realistic it is hard to see really anybody representative from the REC nations be competitive in the Challenge Cup in the immediate term. The window where the Russian clubs could pick up wins appears to have passed, the Romanians too will unlikely get any better and those have been countries where the strongest REC clubs have come from in recent years. The Georgians maybe have potential upside, but not yet, especially with no club hording all the top players.

Hopefully there will still be a future for REC clubs to be more competitive in the Challenge Cup at some point. It's just right now that seems even more of a long term goal. In the meantime it may be of better use to focus more resources elsewhere with a possible view of coming back when in a stronger position. This season with Timisoara getting fined for snow and embarrassed by Northampton, or Enisey-STM in their off season travelling over 5,000km to Sochi to get thrashed by Bristol in front of 100 people. It simply seems now there is little value in the Challenge Cup for these clubs in just repeating that.

Friday 11 January 2019

Why has the 6 Nations now completely cut off Georgia at youth level?

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Georgia U18 after beating Ireland in 2015
You may remember in the 2012-2015 cycle all the 6 Nations competed with the rest of Europe at U18 level in Rugby Europe (then FIRA) competitions. These were held in the usual format of divisions of 8 three matches per side.

Notably these U18 competitions were the start of Georgia's youth program bringing improving results. They notably got a win over Ireland in 2015 (after a couple years of near misses against them), and also beat Italy three times in 2012, 2013, & 2015.

However despite this being 6 Nations competing in a Rugby Europe competition, it was always clear who was deciding the rules. Even when the format had been that the bottom two teams had to playoff to reach the tournament again the next year. Yet when Georgia U18 beat Italy in 2012, the Georgians still had to go back to the playoff to qualify again anyway despite finishing outside the bottom two places. After they beat Italy again in 2013, they changed it so only the bottom team had to playoff.

In 2015 Georgia U18 came second beating both Ireland and Italy whilst Portugal U18 beat Scotland. This placed Scotland in the last place to playoff for their position, but we never got to see them to do so as following that with the Tier 2 sides as their strongest point in U18 rugby all the 6N teams quit.
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Georgia U18 pack down vs France

The one exception was France who still played with everyone else in the weakened remnants of the tournament. They also joined the others though in the "U18 6 Nations festival" in 2018 with a "France A side", and a "France B" side playing the rest of Europe and who were beaten by Georgia in the final.

Now for 2019 news has come that the French have gone too. This has now left Georgia completely cut off from any of the best teams in continent who they had been competing with better every year.

According to somebody who works at World Rugby "there are a variety of reasons" that 6 Nations decided to pull out of the competition with "the main one being the format was not the best for developmental purposes".

Yet this is odd and needs a bit more detail, as the format was three matches in a week, which is the exact same as their "U18 6 Nations festival". So what's the difference, why does the presence of the Georgians make it "not the best for developmental purposes" as opposed to not having them there?

Also it was already shown back in 2012 when they gerrymandered so that a 6 Nations team didn't have to playoff that the 6 Nations had all the power in the relationship with Rugby Europe. If there was a problem with the format they wanted changing, Rugby Europe doesn't exactly have the strength to get in their way. So the real reason for their departure remains a mystery, but it's not good especially for Georgia to be cut off from this competition, the experience either they, or the Iberians got against that level of opponent such as France was likely useful development moving up to U20.

On a related note Georgia also have also of course had wins over Ireland and Scotland at U20 in 2018 to go with their win over Italy in 2016. There had been talk of considering them for entry to the U20 6 Nations, and the Georgian Union even announced something along those lines shortly after hosting the 2017 U20 World Championship. Yet unfortunately absolutely nothing actually seemed to come of that announcement which suggests it was either done prematurely or by mistake.

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Even Australia and New Zealand play
Pacific Islanders annually at U20 level

At U20 level even the Pacific Islanders Fiji and Tonga have been able to play continental competition against New Zealand and Australia. Argentina U19 play an annual fixture against the South American U20 Trophy qualifier (usually Uruguay). However Europe, which has had eight of the top 14 teams in the world at U20 in the past three years, continues to shut its doors to those outside the 6 Nations.

This is an example of what is proving such a problem for European rugby's growth. We basically have the 6 Nations who are in practice the continent's governing body in terms of all the big decisions who have zero responsibility for the rest of the region. Rugby Europe who are left to look after the rest are utterly powerless against the 6 Nations in representing interests of other European nations.

Thursday 10 January 2019

Rugby in Eastern Europe in a terrible state

The emergence and continued rise of Georgian rugby has been one of the best stories in the sport over the past 15 years. However not only are they somewhat of an anomaly as a nation who went from absolutely nowhere to quickly reach RWC level, but they also buck another unfortunate trend as rugby in Eastern Europe currently seems to be otherwise in poor health right now.

Romania's severe struggles at junior level for the past several years and horrible 2018 have been well documented on this site. But the Oaks may be the most high profile team but are far from alone as several other lower ranked nearby nations have been going through tough times themselves.

Around 5 years ago Moldova looked to be a team on the up with some of the characteristics of a very early Georgia. They started the European Nations Cup in 2000 in the very lowest division playing the likes of Israel and Bulgaria, and rose up the levels and got very near promotion to the REC ahead of Germany in 2013/14, and did so with a big pack which notably included their first two players Vadim Cobilas and Dmitri Arhip to have gone onto have successful careers in major professional leagues.
Moldova have spectacularly crashed
from a World Ranking high of 25th to
now 56th in space of just four years 

To say their fortunes have dipped since then is an understatement as they have turned out to be the Kazakhstan of this current RWC cycle. As a Union they have totally crashed. In 2018 they continued to an ongoing 11 match losing streak, were relegated from the RET, and now in the fourth tier of European rugby they recently lost 80-6 to Sweden (a team they beat 57-8 back in 2014), and their World Ranking has plummeted from a high of 25th in 2014 to currently 56th.

At junior level their results are horrendous as well. Their U20s have not competed in a Rugby Europe tournament since 2015, whilst their U18s last year lost to Hungary (41-5), Israel (31-7), & Croatia (46-0) to rank 27th out of 27 European nations who competed at U18 level (in 2017 they also ranked 29th out 30 European nations who competed at U18 level beating Bulgaria in a last place playoff).

The only positive for Moldovan rugby this past year is an impressive new tighthead prop in Cristian Ojovan achieving a 4 year professional contract at Aurillac. He should hopefully have a good long career for another decade, but you can't expect many more players are likely to emerge into the professional game with the current state the Union is in and some of the continent's worst youth teams.

Meanwhile Ukraine were in the REC as recently as 2012 but have also fallen badly. They went from winning all their games RET in 2015, to losing them all and getting relegated to the fourth tier in 2016.

The most well known Czech player Jan
Macháček with Montferrand in 2001
Another team who used to be in the REC is the Czech Republic who spent six seasons in the competition between 2003 to 2008 with a few players with Top 14 experience such as Jan Macháček, Miroslav Němeček, Lukáš Rapant, and Martin Jágr.

The last of those players retired a couple years ago and saw little coming through to succeed them. After lock Martin Wognitsch left Angoulême in the summer it meant there were no Czechs left in professional rugby in either of the top two divisions in France for the first time this Millennium. Also since dropping out the REC they then were relegated from the RET in 2014, and despite having gotten their place back in 2017 look well set to be relegated again this year.

Elsewhere Poland have still not produced another player to feature in a major professional league since Gregori Kacała in the 1990s and do not appear to be a contender for promotion to the REC any time soon. They recently got trounced 49-0 at home by the Netherlands in November.
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Lithuania wing Jonas Mikalčius had his
career ended by a serious knee injury

In the Baltic states, Lithuania have just seen their star prospect Jonas Mikalčius' career ended at 23 by a serious knee injury soon after he had just earned a move to the English Premiership with Harlequins, whilst Latvia's only pro players Uldis Saulite and Jurijs Baranovs at Enisey-STM are both likely near retirement.

Although there has been some more positive news for rugby in Hungary who had their first ever player to reach pro level this year in Bence Róth with Bourg-en-Bresse in Pro D2.

Whilst Russia for the last few years have not exactly made huge progress or produced a bunch new young players to come through either. Although the mood of course has been changed there since receiving a surprise RWC qualification, which has boosted the Bears as they achieved two of their best results for years against Canada and Japan off the back of it. They will hope to build off an appearance on the sport's biggest stage more successfully than they did post 2011 and improve their production line of talent at youth level (which has not been great but also not as bad as Romania).
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Spain U20 thrashed Romania 70-6
in a friendly match last month

Overall though East of Germany the picture does not really look particularly positive for rugby in Europe right now aside from Georgia. Most of the other European sides who appear to be making the most progress, certainly in terms of youth development, are all in the West.

Since Georgia U20 have had a place in the WR U20 Championship, it has been the Iberians Portugal and Spain who have been the ones usually playing it out for a spot in the U20 Trophy and look the best at U18. The latter in particular look to be in a better position to potentially see more homegrown talent of the level to play professionally in France in future compared to others. Along with that Belgium and the Netherlands also have improved in recent years into REC or potential REC level teams.

At junior level all those Eastern European RET teams have shown nothing. Romania had an awful year U20 wise yet still beat Ukraine 76-13, who had in turn beaten Poland 42-13 the match before that. Not results offering much encouragement for new players coming through.

It would be great to see a side from Eastern Europe become the "new Georgia" in terms of a 100% homegrown side rising out of nowhere and very meagre resources. However at this point not only is little progress towards that happening, but rugby in some of these nations seems to be in a dire state going backwards. Hopefully entering into a new decade this pattern can somehow reverse itself.

Thursday 3 January 2019

When will Portugal become a serious REC competitor again?


The beginning of Portugal's fall to REC relegation candidates first started following the disappointing RWC 2015 qualifying campaign of 2013/14. That was the last attempt at reaching the big stage for most of the generation that took them there in 2007 (apart from Gonçalo Uva who was the last of that team to retire this year), but it didn't go quite as hoped and coach Errol Brain got sacked half way through it.

His assistant Frederico Sousa took over as coach for the next year, but Portugal could not recover their RWC campaign. In fact they were even less competitive and he got sacked after 8 tests. However short that time in charge was though Sousa still managed more matches than all of his next three successors.

João Luís Pinto only lasted 7 tests in 2014/15 with his last being an away defeat to Kenya. After him came Frenchman Olivier Baragnon, but his time in charge ended up similar to that of Romania's recent appointment as he quickly fell out with the FPR and got sacked after just 3 tests. So by the time of the REC campaign in 2016 where Portugal were on their fifth coach within four years in Scotsman Ian Smith.


This was a team who previously had the same coach Tomaz Morais for over 70 tests and the best part of a decade from 2001 to 2010. Now results were diminishing and they were burning through a number of coaches. Following the 2016 REC under Ian Smith where Portugal were relegated for the first ever time and a period of instability and worsening results a change of approach seems to have come about with the appointment in September 2016 of ex GD Direito coach Martim Aguiar.
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Martim Aguiar unveiled as the new
Portugal coach in September 2016

Notable about Aguiar's appointment was in the opening press conference is the comments of FPR president Luís Cassiano Neves. He talked of no "immediate pressure" of results for Aguiar but the main focus and goal being qualifying for the RWC in 2023.

So suddenly Portugal went from quite a change of appointing a coach virtually every year to talking of no pressure on the coach and of focusing on a project to reach a tournament 7 years away.

In practice what this idea of "building a project" for 2023 basically seems to be be though is throwing so many young players into the team that recent selections have not far off resembled a University team and almost accepting remaining in the RET for the time being.

Over the past two years under Aguiar Portugal have fielded a greater quantity of young players than any other international team and have done by a comfortable margin too. That is of course in spite of being a team that plays relatively fewer tests than most top 20 sides over that period as well.

According to ESPN Scrum statistics Portugal under Aguiar's 17 tests in charge have used 22 players aged 20 or under (by comparison next highest is Georgia who have fielded 13 over that period, and all 10 Tier 1 sides combined have fielded 25). On average 9 of his starting XV has been aged 24 or under.
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Portugal U20 2017

If you look at the average age of their matchday squad that played Romania in November the average was just 23. That's over two years younger than any of the top 22 international teams fielded that month, and four years younger than the general average age of 27 for an international team.

It's only 15 months since Portugal reached the final of the World Rugby U20 Trophy in 2017 for their best ever finish in the tournament and they have wasted no time bringing those players through to the senior team. Already 16 of that squad are now fully capped internationals which has flown past the previous record of 12 for most players from a single U20 squad reaching the full national team within a year.

Portugal have been awarding full international caps to their successful 2017 U20 team at a record pace

However when you look closer that is not the first time Portugal have been doing this. Their U20 Trophy squad of 2013 is in fact the joint record holder for most players to have become full internationals with 18, whilst the squad from 2015 has produced 17 full internationals.

So a large quantity of young players have come into international rugby, but a number of those are just coming in for a handful of caps and then make way for the next batch coming in. As of yet it is hard to see what project Portugal are building whilst the team keeps changing.

Aguiar's team went into a REC promotion/relegation playoff against Romania selecting a 23 man squad with an average age of 23, and an average 7 caps with 17 of 23 not yet on 10 caps. Romania had a 23 with precisely 700 more caps in total. Florin Vliacu had more than Portugal's starting XV between them.
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Samuel Marques is one of a handful
of French-Portuguese players who would
offer valuable experience and quality but
have not played for them for years now

Meanwhile experience in the form of players in professional leagues has largely been missing. With the exception of Francisco Fernándes and Jean Sousa who were called up only for the Germany RWC qualifying match, all the other heritage players like Julien Bardy, Mike Tadjer, Samuel Marques, Aurélien Beco have not been seen for years now. Even the two homegrown Portuguese players José Lima and Pedro Bettencourt who play professionally in France and England have not been seen throughout the past year.

The question is how long will this RET phase of Portugal's inconsistent inexperienced selections continue for until they start to compete more seriously?

It's a shame for Portugal as on paper they have the personnel to certainly be a capable REC level team at the very least. But if you look at that selection against Romania, or even the one that got a surprise opportunity to reach the RWC Repechage against Germany this year, those were not ones that were genuinely making the best attempt Portugal could possibly manage at achieving their best results. Neither was the team they selected which very nearly lost to Poland last March.

When we the reach qualifying period for RWC 2023 in three or four years time, will Aguiar have got back into the REC having built an established core to his team through his talented upcoming generation of Portugal most successful ever U20s along with added experience from professional players in France? Or will there still be this revolving door of young players who come in for 5 caps and Portugal still be known as the nation with by far the worst senior side in relation to their juniors?

They have the well trained youth talent, but it is the high performance programs and professionalism that appear to be lacking. There has been talk recently of adding professionalism to the setup and possibly contracting players following possibly similar to how Uruguay have done (good news), and increasing focus on 7s (not such good news and from a 15s standpoint simply a waste of resources).