SHOULD a strange sound be heard in the Kremlin, it will probably be Stalin spinning in his grave. The brutal Soviet dictator will be sounding off not because of what's happened in Kabul but because of what's about to happen in French rugby at the weekend.
The starting grid for the Top 14 will be heaving with his fellow Georgians. At the last count, there were 29, including 21 props and two hookers.
Maybe old Joe saw it coming long ago, hence his decision to ban Rugby Union throughout the USSR in 1949. Stalin outlawed the sport as ‘not relevant to the principles of the Soviet people'.
It remained outlawed for eight years, reinstatement following a riotous match staged behind the Iron Curtain between Llanelli and Grivita Rosa of Bucharest which ended in a mass brawl.
The Khrushchev regime must have been suitably impressed.
Now just about every Top 14 scrum will be propped by at least one Georgian. Newly-promoted Perpignan and Biarritz have seven between them, Racing, Stade Francais, Bordeaux and Lyon two each.
PETER JACKSON
