The Yerevan Spartak Rugby Club took Dinamo's place in the Soviet Championships in 1972. In a later season, Spartak reached the quarter-final stages of the Soviet Cup. However, the rugby teams were disbanded by the early 1990s due to the effects of the Armenia-Azerbaijan War and economic difficulties in Armenia following the demise of the Soviet Union. Armenia gained its independence from the USSR in 1991, but rugby in went into hibernation in the country for almost a decade.