Ivan Rumyantsev: Khimik players will be recognized on the streets

In the PARI Russian Rugby Championship of the 2022-2023 season, the climax is coming, on June 17 and 18, the teams will play in the final matches of the season, where their standings will finally become known. It is already known that the main loser of the 2022-2023 season was RK Khimik from Dzerzhinsk. The debutant of the elite division of Russian rugby could not score a single point, but he was remembered for several interesting matches, where he put up a decent resistance to his opponent.

Correspondent of “MK in Nizhny Novgorod” talked with the General Director of the RK “Khimik” Ivan Rumyantsev.

Dzerzhinsky “Khimik” took the last place in the elite of Russian rugby at the end of the debut season. Why did it happen? What difficulties did the team face?

We knew that it would be difficult for the team to play in the elite division of Russian rugby. In the summer we started to build a team from scratch, but before the start of the season we had little time to build up the squad. Before the start of the spring part of the season, we updated the squad by 50%, the players had time to play and make connections, we saw the result of this in several matches where Khimik was close to scoring points.

Did the big roster changes during the winter off-season result from a poor performance in the first part of the season?

Yes, we assembled the squad a week before the start of the championship, which did not allow the coaching staff to fully view and evaluate the condition of each of the players.

Did the departure of John Malvihill hit the team hard?

John Molvihill is a strong specialist, but his departure did not greatly affect the state of the team. Most of our squad are young players who can grow and progress with any specialist.

With the release of “Chemist” in the elite division of the Championship of Russia, the popularity of rugby in Dzerzhinsk has increased?

Of course, fans began to attend matches, filling the stands, and players are recognized on the streets of Dzerzhinsk. People in Dzerzhinsk began to feel and learn about rugby.

In which league of RK “Khimik” will the season 2023-2024 be played?

We will continue to play in the elite division of Russian rugby. We are not stopped by strong opponents, we will move towards our goal and next season we will try to perform better.