Russia battle to scrape home
Sun, 16 Mar 2008 18:58
Russia beat Romania 12-8 in Krasnodar in a European Nations Cup match on Saturday to go top of Division 1. But it was tough going.
There was only one try in the match and that was scored from a maul by Romanian replacement Valentin Ursache in the second half. All Russia's points came from the boot of flyhalf Yuriy Kushnarev. But it was only at the death that the Russians went ahead.
The Oaks scored first and the Bears levelled only at half-time.
Russia took the lead with a second penalty in the second half but then with 12 minutes to go Ursache scored his try and the Oaks led 8-6.
In the last four minutes Kushnarev scored two more penalties to give his side the narrow victory.
There were some 3000 spectators at Stadium Junost to watch the match.
Russia is now above Georgia but the Lelos have a match in hand. It now seems ,most likely that the decider will be on 12 April when Georgia and Russia meet.
Log with matches played, points and points' difference:
1 Russia: 8; 125; 22
2 Georgia: 7; 151; 19
3 Romania: 9 64; 19
4 Portugal; 9 -18; 15
5 Spain: 8; -9; 14
6 Czech Republic: 7; -313; 7
Scorers:
For Russia:
Pens: Kushnarev 4
For Romania:
Try: Ursache
Pen: Vlaicu
Russia: 15 Igor Kluchnikov, 14 Andrey Kuzin (captain), 13 Igor Galinovskiy, 12 Sergey Trishin, 11 Alexandr Gvozdovskiy, 10 Yuriy Kushnarev, 9 Alexandr Shakirov, 8 Andrey Garbuzov, 7 Andrey Ostrikov, 6 Kirill Kushnarev, 5 Kirill Kulemin, 4 Valery Fedchenko, 3 Ivan Prishepenko, 2 Vladislav Korshunov, 1 Alexandr Khrokin
Replacements: 16 Vladimir Marchenko, 17 Vladimir Botvinikov, 18 Ivan Povesma, 19 Evgeny Matveev, 20 Alexandr Yanushkin, 21 Victor Motorin, 22 Mikhail Babaev,
Romania:
15 Florin Vlaicu, 14 Catalin Fercu, 13 Csaba Gal, 12 Catalin Dascalu, 11 Stefan Ciuntu, 10 Ionut Dimofte, 9 Iulian Andrei, 8 Costica Mersoiu (captain), 7 Daniel Carpo, 6 Mihai Macovei, 5 Alin Coste, 4 Cristian Petre, 3 Ion Paulica, 2 Bogdan Zebega, 1 Radu Basalau,
Replacements: 16 Marcel Mihalache, 17 Nicolae Nere, 18 Valentin Ursache, 19 Vasile Rus, 20 Danut Dumbrava, 21 Ciprian Caplescu, 22 Georgica Bigiu
Referee: Colin Stanley (Ireland)
Touch judges: David Wilkinson (Ireland), Leo Colgan (Ireland)
Commissioner: Michel Lamoulie (France)
