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Georgia are winners on and off the pitch, Russia do the double in sevens and England and France reign supreme in age-grade rugby.RUGBY CONTINUES TO GROW ACROSS EUROPEFresh from their best-ever Rugby World Cup campaign, Georgia’s senior men captured a sixth straight European Nations Cup Division 1A title with another clean sweep of wins to the delight of their huge home support. Meanwhile, rapidly-improving Germany came out on top in a tense relegation decider with Portugal. Belgium replace Portugal as Division 1B champions in 2017, while Switzerland, Luxembourg and Estonia also won promotion to a higher level after more than one million viewers watched the action from the European Nations Cup in 2016 thanks to rugbyeurope.tv.The Rugby Europe Women’s Championship had an added edge to it in 2016, with the winner progressing to a two-legged Women’s Rugby World Cup 2017 play-off against Scotland. Cheered on by a 3,500-strong crowd in Madrid, Spain beat the Netherlands 35-7 in the final before overcoming the Scots 25-15 on aggregate to qualify for Ireland 2017.After staging a hugely successful Rugby World Cup, England welcomed the world’s best up-and-coming players to its shores for the World Rugby U20 Championship in Manchester in June. The hosts claimed the title in convincing fashion after a 45-21 victory over Ireland, surprise conquerors of New Zealand, in an all-European final. At a regional level, France were crowned champions in both the boys’ and girls’ Rugby Europe U18 Championship. Great Britain, France and repechage winners Spain flew the flag for Europe in both the men’s and women’s rugby sevens events at Rio 2016. Team GB impressed in winning the men’s silver medal, while Spain were guaranteed representation in the women’s final through the presence of Alhambra Nievas, who in November was a joint recipient of the World Rugby Referee Award.The Rugby Europe sevens circuit continues to blossom. Forty-two nations competed in 10 different tournaments, with Russia winning both the men’s and women’s Grand Prix Series. Ireland and Malta took the men’s Trophy and Conference titles, while Sweden and Latvia did the same in the women’s. Ireland won the men’s U18 sevens.Off the pitch, the footprint of Rugby Europe has increased with the appointment of Georgia and Romania to the World Rugby Council and Slovakia as a World Rugby associate member. Nearly 2,000 training and education programmes were set up in 2016, helping to support the development of the game in the region, while Get Into Rugby reached 391,200 participants – 37 per cent of them girls – in 29 unions.ABOVEFrance’s Marjorie Mayans dives over for a try against Spain at Rio 2016LEFTRussia in action at the Hong Kong Sevenswww.rugbyeurope.eutwitter: @rugby_europe42nations competed on the Rugby Europe sevens circuit in 201654 WORLD RUGBY YEAR IN REVIEW 2016PARTICIPATE | AROUND THE REGIONS