Georgia's forwards have for some time been top drawer...Mamuka Gorgodze (since retired) was certainly one of the strongest and toughest beast to play rugby since pa fell off the bus. They are respected even by tier 1 national sides...ask the Welsh who they should have beaten last year in Cardiff...Roundtree must relish in this challenge...
The only weakness seems that they lack backline skills but as far as I'm concerned they could hold their own in forward play anywhere...perhaps a little input here and there, a tweak or 2 and you're got a powerful 8-cylinder engine.
Yeah, I'm very interested to see how they turn out in Japan...could be very interesting indeed.
They have lacked resources but I've heard that some wealthy Georgian, some call him an oligarch is involved in support there.
There is no doubt that they too need to concentrate in building their backline to have the full finished product and then they will cause "die poppe" to dance.
I visit a Georgian restaurant in Moscow as their traditional Shashlik (lamb kebab) is delicious...I like these people, a bit rough but kind and very friendly when you treat them with respect...they remind me of Italians in the south...they tend to look like candidates for Hollywood gangster movies but that's misleading.
To come back to rugby...they are to be admired...from very difficult and humble beginnings they have risen...
The break-up of the Soviet Union led to a civil war, which helped set back the game greatly, and the recent Russian conflict with Georgia has also set it on a back foot.[1] Half of all Soviet clubs were in Georgia.[4] The Georgians applied for associate membership of the IRB in 1990, but were turned down.[4] It took two years for the IRB to admit them in 1990, after consultation with the Soviet Federation.[4]
The following year, Georgia played their first international match, against Zimbabwe, and won 16 to 3. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Georgia formed their own national team (though a CIS team played in the early 1990s) and applied for International Rugby Football Board
(now, International Rugby Board) membership. In 1993 the IFRB accepted
Georgia as a federation member, making them the 52nd member.
In 1997, New Zealand coach Ross Meurant found the national team
had only two practice balls, when he went to advise the Georgia Under-19
squad.[4]
This was typical of the lack of resources that the Georgians faced.
Meurant said that the tackle bags that they were using were improvised:
"
They were of denim material, obviously stitched together on a domestic sewing machine and stuffed with rubber."
[4]
The wife of another coach had stayed up half the night making them.[4] This was not atypical. In the early 1990s, the Georgians had converted old Soviet era tractors into scrum machines.
In 1994 the Gumari were formed, being the Georgian Barbarians,
and they went on to tour France. The following year saw the inauguration
of the Sini competition. Their 1998 loss to Romania saw Georgia face Tonga in a repechage match to enter the 1999 Rugby World Cup in Wales. Georgia lost and thus did not make it to the World Cup. Though in 2001 they won the European Nations Cup,
and became the 7th highest ranked team in Europe. They subsequently got
through the qualifying stages for the next World Cup, and made it to
Australia for the 2003 Rugby World Cup. They also qualified for the 2007 World Cup and went on to win their first World Cup match.
Crowds as large as 10-15,000 regularly attend local derbies in Tbilisi.[1]
As Georgia is a member of the Council of Europe, this gives Georgians employment rights within France, and many Georgian players are now based there.[5] For example, in the qualifiers for the 2007 Rugby World Cup against Ireland, 18 of 25 players on the squad were based in France.[5]
Notable players include Georgi Shkinin,[5] and captain Ilia Zeguinidze who was considered something of a Renaissance Man in World Cup rugby as a talented international lawyer with the ability to speak several languages fluently.[6]
