The Russians are here
Russia play the Lions at Ellis Park on Saturday evening, the second match of their tour to South Africa. as part of the Lions Challenge series.
They are no strangers to South Africa, having come often to the Blue Bulls in their preparations for the European Nations Cup. In fact they at one stage had a Blue Bull, Blikkies Groenewald, coaching their national side and had some Blue Bulls' players in their national side, which caused them trouble through lack of qualification.
But they then qualified for the 2011 Rugby World Cup in New Zealand. Eight of that team will play the Lions – Igor Klyuchnikov, Alexei Makovetskiy, Mikhail Babaev, Alexander Yanyushkin, Victor Gresev, Artem Fatakhov, Alexander Voytov and Valeriy Tsnobiladze.
Some of that team are no longer as active as they were. Andrei Garbuzov, Viatcheslav Grachev, Alexander Khrokin and Alexei Travkin are now over 35. Vasily Artemyev, who went to school and university in Dublin, now plays for Northampton Saints who have a Heineken Cup match this weekend.
Russia lost all four of their matches at the 2011 World Cup – to USA (13-6), Italy (53-17), Ireland (62-12) AND Australia (68-22).
In their opening match of tour, they lost 14-0 to the University of Johannesburg.
Russia, who are in mid-season, play their first match at home in Division 1 of the European Nations Cup against Spain in Sochi on 2 February.
The Russian player most likely to catch the eye is their tiny but lively scrumhalf Alexander Yanyushkin.
Russian Bears: 15 Igor Klyuchnikov, 14 Andrei Otrokov, 13 Yaroslav Rechnev, 12 Alexei Makovetskiy, 11 Mikhail Babaev, 10 Sergei Yanyushkin, 9 Alexander Yanyushkin, 8 Victor Gresev, 7 Artem Fatakhov, 6 Andrey Temnov, 5 Maxim Kiselev, 4 Alexander Voytov, 3 Innokentiy Zykov, 2 Valeriy Tsnobiladze, 1 Grigory Tsnobiladze
Replacements:16 Alexey Volkov, 17 Sergey Novoselov, 18 Evgeny Pronenko, 19 Pavel Kvernadze, 20 Pavel Butenko, 21 Alexei Shcherban, 22 Sergeu Sugrobov, 23 Igor Kurashov
Date: Saturday, 20 January 2013
Kick-off: 19.00 (17.00 GMT)
Venue: Ellis Park, Johannesburg
Referee: Lourens van der Merwe
Assistant referees: Local
TMO: Johan Greeff
