2005 RUGBY FESTIVAL

2005 Rugby Festival was a great success and a further improvement on previous years. We had teams from Moscow - Russia, Tabriz - Iran, Tbilisi - Georgia, Guba and Baku - Azerbaijan with Georgian teams dominating the event. Azerbaijan women's team participated in the festival for the first time and showed that they are equally as good as some of the men's teams.

We managed to raise over $20,000 USD from our annual rugby dinner which runs concurrently with the festival. All the money raised goes towards youth rugby development, and pays the costs to keep our clubs in action during the season. We were happy to host Jeremy Pugh as the main speaker and Norman Rowan as supporting guest speaker at Baku Rugby Festival dinner this year. Thanks to Jeremy for providing a great prize of a Welsh Rugby Shirt signed by the international squad and to Norry for presenting 4 tickets for Six Nations tournament held in 2005. Both men were great ambassadors for rugby development and helped to make our annual 2005 rugby dinner and festival the best so far.

Jeremy Pugh and Norman Rowan at the 2005 Baku Rugby festival final presentation Hooligana Captain with tournament winner's trophy.

AZERBAIJAN ENTERS ITS FIRST WOMEN'S TEAM INTO INTERNATIONAL RUGBY LEVEL

2005 saw the first ever Azerbaijan women's team "Caspian Cats" to enter the international rugby arena at the Dubai 7s tournament. The Cats were competing against very strong teams like the Ecosse ladies from Scotland and the Kazakhstan ladies from Almaty. Caspian Cats gained more experience and improved their performance each game they played at the Dubai 7s which saw them into the quarter finals.

Determined to do better this time around the Caspian Cats have already registered for Dubai 7's tournament in November/December 2006 and have shortened their holiday break so they can get more practice time.