The Russian rugby league championship, in spite of considerable duress, has reached the play-off stages upon completion of the South and Centre conferences. The two top teams from the strongest of the divisions, the Centre Conference, join the southern champions and a team representing the ARLK’s renascent northern operation in Saint Petersburg in two semi-finals that will decide the finalists for the early November decider. The continuing lack of official status in the country means that raising funds and awareness has been difficult for the governing Association of Rugby League Clubs (ARLK).

“Unfortunately, at the moment Vereya has no competitive rivals in Russia,” admits that club’s and ARLK president Edgard Taturyan. “I am glad to say that despite the very strong opposition from rugby union and [government] sports officials we are still alive and have competitions. We have never been able to play a Russian Championship to the very end. Teams had no money to pay the transport costs to go and play in the other cities. I hope this year we will finish all the games and play the championship to the very end.”

Storm and Vereya topped the four-team Moscow and Moscow Region division, with the latter undefeated. The other two teams were city centre university outfit MGPU and Schelkovo Pandas, from the north-east of the capital city. In the south, six teams from Saratov and Rostov-on-Don played in two groups, with university sides Express and Patriot meeting in the final, won 34-12 by the Patriots.

In the north, where rugby league has been dormant since rugby league was denuded of its official status in 2010, university side Forrest Technical Academy and Nevskaya Zastava RLFC will play a match to select a side to take on Muscovites Storm, for the semi-final on 20 October, in what is a promising sign that the green shoots of a slow and gradual recovery are visible. Vereya heads south a week later.

RLEF General Manager Danny Kazandjian was quick to commend the efforts of the ARLK: “Russia’s a hugely important country for rugby league. Other than France, no other Continental nation has such a long association with the sport and has the capacity for players to play from early childhood to adulthood. The passion of the Russian rugby league community and its ability to push forward in the face of so many obstacles is a credit to them. Earlier this year we conducted further coach training in Moscow Region and in 2014 we will send RLEF technical teams to Russia to complete coach and match officials training, giving the energetic and talented corps of Russian tutors the tools and legitimacy they need to train local participants.

“We continue to work with the ARLK and explore other avenues to have our official status restored. We are in contact with Russian politicians and the sport must become a member of SportAccord, which will aid Russian rugby league to convince the sports ministry of our independent status from union. Officially, the Russian sports ministry says the two sports are too similar to merit separate federations. We need to convince them otherwise.”

Pictured: Storm on the attack against Schelkovo.