Tokyo (AFP)

Qualified thanks to an improbable combination of circumstances, the Russian "Bear" approach the second World Cup in their history in Japan (September 20 - November 2) with the sole objective of winning a match: it would be a first.

The disqualification of Spain, Romania and Belgium, guilty of lining up non-eligible players during the playoffs, offered Russia its ticket to Japan, eight years after a first experience in New Zealand that was completed by four defeats in as many games.

This time, the Welsh coach of the "Bears", Lyn Jones, would like to see his players win at least one. The first two meetings, against the host country and Samoa, are the most affordable before the two pitfalls of Ireland and Scotland.

The opening match against the Japanese XV will be "the biggest match in the history of Russian rugby," said Jones, who came to the head of the selection in 2018 when, theoretically, Russia was at the time eliminated from the race at the World Cup.

Despite disappointing preparation matches, marked by a derelict received against Italy (85-15), Lyn Jones wants to believe. "The good news is we can beat them," he dared.

If Russia is a small country rugby, the oval ball is not new. The first official match dates from the 1920s and the first professional championship was held in 1936. Rugby was then banned by Stalin, who saw it as a bourgeois sport, before reborn under Khrushchev.

In addition to captain Vasily Artemyev, formed in Ireland and passed by Northampton (England), only two players play in a foreign club. All the others play in the small local championship (eight teams) dominated by Enisei and Krasny Yar, two clubs based in Krasnoyarsk, a Siberian city located more than 3,000 km east of Moscow.

© 2019 AFP