Russia fly half Iustin Pertrushka outpaces the Romania defence Photo: Stephen Scullion
20 APRIL 2007
By Ian McFarlane
Romania beat Russia 20-10 to win the ninth place play off in Division B at the IRB Under 19 World Championship 2007 at Queen’s.
It took five minutes for Romania to open the scoring after early pressure. From a lineout the ball was passed to centre Ionel Cazan who broke through a tackle.
From the ruck scrum half Valentin Ivan found wing Georgel Catuna who slid in wide out.
Russia came back strongly in the next fifteen minutes without finding the break through.
Romania relieved the pressure with an excellent kick to touch near the Russia 22. The pack secured possession and Bogdan Petreanu tunnelled under a pile of players to score.
Either side of half time Russia fought their way back into the match, but 10 minutes after the break Romania captain Ivan extended their lead with a penalty.
A simple error led to the third Romanian try, when a bouncing ball was not gathered and was taken by flanker Alexandru Belbean to score, with Ivan adding the conversion.
It took till the 53rd minute for Russia to score their first points when centre Dmitry Gerasimov broke through a series of weak tackles to power over.
They quickly added another try when centre Sergey Gavryushin used his pace to round the opposition for an excellent try.
In the last few minutes Russia continuously attacked, but were unable to add to their tally, allowing Romania to claim ninth place.
QUOTES
Romania captain Valentin Ivan: “It is always good to win and I am happy that we scored first. The Russians came back well but we were able to hold on for the victory.”
Romania head coach Alexander Achim: “We are pleased to have won but we must congratulate Russia on their performance. I am pleased with the way we played after a slow start in the tournament. We will come back stronger next time although we will have some stiff competition in the qualifying games.”
Russia head coach Sergey Lysko: “I feel that that was a very close match and that they could have won but chances seemed to slip away. Today reflects the whole tournament. This was the first time that we had the chance to train on grass. If we had more experience on this surface we may have done better. For next year we will have to start again and if the weather is good we may have more opportunity to train together and we will be more competitive.”
Russia captain Alexy Tolstykh: “It seems that we started the championship badly but today we played better. We started to handle the ball better but after we let Romania score three tries it was all uphill. The championship was good experience for us and we will develop as a better team after playing here in Belfast.”
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