RUSSIAN STANDARDS
ACCORDING TO Sport in the Soviet Union, a 1980 book by Victor and Jennifer Louis, rugby was on the up there in 1958. By 1960, they write, “Leather melon” drew 100 teams from 30 cities to compete in the Soviet championship while finishing schools for both coaches and athletes were springing up.
As the book goes, “In 1962 alone, ten new teams were formed in Georgia, four appeared in Tadjikistan (sic), and four in Uzbekistan.” Between 1978 and 1989, the Soviet Union would beat Italy nine times. They toppled Romania three times between 1985 and 1989. In 1988 they beat the USA, 31-16 in Moscow.
Yet the authors added: “It seemed in the early 1960s rugby was burgeoning throughout the Soviet Union, but today it is clear the game is played, above all, by students and mostly in Moscow.”
That was 1980. Change was inevitable upon the collapse of
