(Repeats feature first moved at 0002 GMT)
AUCKLAND, May 7 (Reuters) - Yuri Nikolaev cleared away laptops and newspapers spread liberally across the small table in his cramped Christchurch hotel unit and allowed himself a small grin as he contemplated the future.
After bringing his club to New Zealand for a training camp, the Russian Rugby Union (RRU) vice president was looking forward to coming back next year to follow his country in their first World Cup.
“We will bring about 1,000 people just from Krasnoyarsk (his home town in Siberia) to follow the team,” Nikolaev told Reuters.
“We have dreamed about the next World Cup in New Zealand... This time we could not miss it.”
The former Soviet Union team were invited by the International Rugby Board (IRB) to attend the inaugural World Cup in New Zealand and Australia in 1987.
However a number of players of South African origin were playing in the team, contravening a ban on sporting relations with South Africa due to the apartheid regime.
“Our officials refused (to drop them) and we did not come here,” Nikolaev, a former Soviet and Russian international flyhalf said through an interpreter, Rashid Bikbov, the forwards coach at his Krasny Yar club.
“Ever since then we have always been very close, but keep failing.
“In 1993 we lost to Romania in a very crucial match. We should have played in the World Cup in France (in 2007) but lost to Portugal.”
NO MONEY
Russia qualified for the 2011 tournament, where they have been placed in Pool C with Australia, Ireland, Italy and the United States, when they finished second in the European Nations Cup, behind Georgia, in March.
“We have grown up. Slowly...we have improved our game,” Nikolaev said. “The national team has done a lot of work. And maybe this time we had a little bit of luck.”
Nikolaev and Bikbov, who toured with the Soviet side to New Zealand in 1991, said the break up of the Soviet Union had almost destroyed rugby in their country.
“We had no money,” Bikbov said. “We had support from some of our sponsors (and) we had IRB support. It was necessary for us to re-organise the national team competition.”
Russia now has a professional league, with the majority of the teams based around Moscow or in Siberia -- two are in Krasnoyarsk, including Krasny Yar, who have won 10 titles.
Current champions VVA Monino, the Air Force Academy team, provide the bulk of the Russian national team.
Some of the Russian players have experience playing in Britain, Ireland and France, but are not as well-travelled as the Georgians, who made their first World Cup in 2003 and almost upset Ireland at the 2007 tournament in France.
PLAYER POOL
Russia needed to expand its development programme and create a bigger player pool to feed the national side, said Nikolaev, hence the reason for his club spending three weeks in New Zealand.
“We have two (Russian) seasons before the World Cup and the coach for the Russian team has said the selections are open,” he said.
“We (Krasny Yar) hope to have a bigger selection for the World Cup. Maybe next year, 50 percent will be our players, especially after this New Zealand experience.”
Nikolaev, who was the RRU president from 1998-2004, said Russia’s medium-term aim was to become a force within the Tier II nations.
“(In the near term) we won’t approach the leaders of world rugby,” he said.
“When the Soviet Union played we were stronger than the Italy team. We beat the Romanian team. We sometimes could compete with France ‘B’.
“If we can approach this level (within 10 years) then it will be an excellent achievement for us.”
Editing by Clare Fallon; To query or comment on this story email sportsfeedback@thomsonreuters.com
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