Rugby union in Yugoslavia
Rugby union in Yugoslavia was a moderately popular sport. It was most popular in the Croatian SR, and to a lesser extent in the Serbian and Slovenian SRs, with some presence in the Bosnian SR as well.
History
1950s and 1960s
Some people date the start of Croatian rugby to the 17th of January 1954 when the Mladost team from Zagreb was formed to become Croatia's first rugby union club.In 1953, a rival code of rugby league was introduced in Serbia, rather than rugby union played in Croatia and the authorities demanded that Serbian clubs switch to rugby union to unite Yugoslavia under one form of rugby football in 1964.
1970s and 1980s
Yugoslav rugby did not enjoy a high reputation. For example, in 1988, an anonymous French rugby official joked that "one of the FIRA nightmares... is to have playing refereed by a Soviet."Yugoslavia was not invited to the first Rugby World Cup in 1987, and did not qualify for the second in 1991.
The former All Black scrum half Chris Laidlaw, writing at the end of the 1970s, saw rugby as a positive force in east-west relations at the time:
Yugoslavia affiliated with the IRB in 1988, and played in the 1988 World Cup qualification.
Due to the links between many Yugoslav and New Zealand families, the side also toured there.
Break up of Yugoslavia
1. Bosnia and Herzegovina,2. Croatia,
3. Macedonia,
4. Montenegro,
5. Serbia,
5a. Kosovo,
5b. Vojvodina,
6. Slovenia
In the early 1990s, former Italian cap, Dr Giancarlo Tizanini was a major driving force in Austrian rugby. Before his death in 1994, he tried hard to establish a Central European
equivalent of the Six Nations between Austria, Hungary, Croatia,
Slovenia and Bosnia.