"Romania is a fine rugby nation but it has been allowed to rot away"

A once-mighty rugby nation has fallen on hard times. Stephen Jones says we must remember Romania's proud history and hope for a revival one day

- Stephen Jones

EVERY SELF-RESPECTING sporting event that is played in pools always has a ‘Pool of Death’. If you are a follower of Romania, or especially a member of their squad at this Rugby World Cup, you will be in no doubt as to the unlucky team forced to exist in so forbidding an environment. Poor Romania.

When the 2023 World Cup began, Pool B had lined up South Africa, Ireland, Scotland, Tonga and Romania, and you really did fear that the Eastern Europeans would suffer terrible damage with that kind of fixture list – their opening fixture against Ireland in Bordeaux ended 82-8 to the Irish.

Yet perhaps younger readers of Rugby World might have no idea as to the celebrated history of Romanian rugby, and some of us are absolutely mortified that potentially such a great rugby nation has fallen on such hard times. It may be difficult to believe but there was a time not so long ago when Romanian rugby was hardly ever out of the news.

They were for years the best team in Europe outside the Five Nations. They lost to the All Blacks in a controversial match when they had two tries disallowed and they also beat Scotland. They were effectively professional players before the game went pro as the state funded two clubs in Bucharest, Steaua and Dinamo, and most of the squads came from those clubs, with a leavening of players who had established themselves in French rugby.

But before the revolution in the country in 1989, Romanian rugby had already been in the news. On an amazing day in Bucharest in 1983, they thrashed the Welsh team under the late Eddie Butler by 24-6, one of the most sensational results for decades, and six months later they saw off Scotland.