“For me this is probably the top of my dreams, to play for my country, my national team and to qualify for the World Cup," admitted wing Vasily Artemyev after the team had earned qualification. “It was a very tough emotional task for the players to play a match at such a high level of expectation as we did against Romania, and to be honest after the final whistle went I felt a bit emptied out.
“Then a couple of days after that the achievement that we’d made started to sink in. It’s only now that we’ve started really talking about it as a team that we understand fully what we have achieved with that result.”
From Europe, the Russians were joined by Georgia in qualifying for the finals on the same weekend after they beat Spain 17-9 at the National Stadium in Tbilisi. It was the Lelos’ seventh victory in their previous eight European Nations Cup matches and guaranteed them a third consecutive World Cup appearance.
“Though I am not Georgian, I understand perfectly well how the Georgians must feel now and share with them the excitement any local rugby supporter must experience now that the national team has won its third World Cup ticket in a row and that the word ‘Georgia’ will resound on the international stage once again,” said former Wallaby centre Tim Lane, who has seen been replaced by Richie Dixon as Georgia coach.
“It was our goal to bring Georgia to the Rugby World Cup again and I am really happy that this goal has been achieved. Now our goal as a team is to make a worthy appearance at the finals.”
The final day meeting between Georgia and Russia would not only decide the ENC champion, but also who qualified as Europe 1 and 2 for RWC 2011. Georgia claimed the title after triumphing 36-8 and, in the process, booked their place in Pool B at RWC 2011 with Argentina, England, Scotland and the Play-off Winner.
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