Georgia’s bringing a new dimension to the game, a fresh new talent to rejuvenate rugby
THE roof may be shut in the Principality Stadium today but Georgia’s historic first match against Wales will bring a welcome breath of fresh air to the global game.
It’s felt particularly same-oldsame-old this week with the vote to return the World Cup to France. Yes, they’ll do a great job with their big stadia, revenue generation and impressive transport infrastructure etc, but for the fans it’s a case of Been There, Done That.
At least it wasn’t South Africa again. However fabulous the safaris may be the fact remains this never feels an entirely comfortable country to travel in with the unfettered hedonism that is the hallmark of a rugby tour. I still have memories of being under practical house arrest in a Pretoria B&B thanks to the landlady’s concerns for our safety.
Ireland, eliminated in the first
round of voting, were naturally devastated. Responding to the independent review which ranked them third, Irish Rugby Football Union chief Philip Browne said: “The report holed us below the waterline, it was always going to be very difficult to come back from that. There were elements of that report that were not done to the level that we would have liked. World rugby needs to make a decision about what kind of World Cup it wants. If it is all about money and shiny new stadia, then obviously there is no room for Ireland.”
Irish fans filling Welsh Twitter timelines with angry claims of Celtic treachery – the WRU followed the independent report’s recommendation and backed South Africa – should consider how many of us here would have loved a Craic-ing World Cup on our doorstep. Although the venues may not have matched the Gallic rugby amphitheatres, Ireland would have compensated with its cultural ambience... and shedloads of Guinness.
Most importantly, just like Japan in 2019, an Irish Rugby World Cup would have offered a different experience. And rugby needs the shock of the new if it is to move beyond the Groundhog Day of the usual nations dominating its politics and the same teams locked into the same tournaments.
As an egg-chaser, there are several things I envy about our Welsh roundball counterparts.
Who’d have thought singing would be one of them? But after a Llanelli friend of mine recounted his forlorn attempts to galvanise the tanked-up crowd around him into a single verse of Hymns & Arias at the Australia game last week, it’s clear rugby has hit a bum note on the choral front.
By contrast, Welsh football’s spontaneous crowd renditions of the national anthem – which visibly lift the team – are truly a thing of beauty. Rugby needs to start singing from the same songsheet pronto.
But a particular source of envy is the variety of opposition football fans can enjoy. Rugby, of course, has a more limited pool. While we get the Six Nations, the Southern Hemisphere big three, Argentina and the usual Tier Two nations year after year, the Welsh soccer faithful can explore more exotic climes, including all those former Soviet “stan” states that sound like something from a Harry Potter novel.
So while rugby fans have the equivalent of a time-share holiday, revisiting the same destinations again and again, football tours can resemble the kind of intrepid odysseys Michael Palin used to build entire series around.
This is why the rise of Georgia as credible opposition is such a tantalising prospect. Imagine a Seven Nations weekend in a city as rich in history as Tbilisi, capital of the country it is widely believed began the world’s first organised wine production more than 7,000 years ago.
According to one travel scribe: “What is it about Georgia lately? The country seems primed to be one of the hottest tourist destinations for 2017, as travellers are freshly obsessed with the fashion, the mountain trekking, the architecture, and the good eats.”
Even just facing them at home, let alone away, is exciting because of their unfamiliarity. The Tier Two game in the autumn tests has followed a set template in recent years.
As the marketing gurus find more ways than a Farrow and Ball colour chart to describe Wales’ alternative grey kit – “anthracite” this year apparently – the rest of us pray that all the kids coming will have their horns confiscated by the stringent security staff and they’ll at least leave it until the second half for the Mexican Wave.
Not that the results are always a predictable rout, however. Wales’ blushes have been saved more than once by a last-gasp drop goal. Sam Davies snatched victory against a fizzing Japan side last autumn, just as Nicky Robinson salvaged the match against Fiji a decade earlier. And a Georgian side that put 54 points on Canada last week will present a challenge to a Welsh team comprising new and unfamiliar combinations – including a debut for Cardiff Blues lock Seb Davies at number 8 and a welcome return for Rhys Priestland paired in a play-making axis with centre Owen Watkin.
This is an enormous game for Georgia, a chance for a team in the no-man’s land between Tier One and Two to stake some crucial territory and make a case to turn the Six Nations into Seven.
They are ranked 12th in the world – above Italy, the last team to be admitted to the Northern Hemisphere showpiece. And in many ways they show more potential to progress than the Azzurri.
Georgia have always had a muscular set-piece game – as befits a nation renowned for its wrestling – but the addition of a Kiwi coaching staff has added more invention behind the pack.
As Georgia look to broaden their horizons beyond the European nations they have beaten regularly – like Russia and Romania – within their own borders rugby is inspiring a new generation.
Speaking to The Guardian this week, the team’s New Zealander coach Milton Haig explained: “An amazing fact about Georgian rugby is that we only have 11,000 registered players from the age of 15 upwards. The number is growing because parents, who follow football, have come to appreciate rugby’s values. In the summer I watched a village under-15 side take on a school from Wales and put 50 points on them, playing some terrific rugby with even props throwing long passes.
“I asked a development officer what had happened and he said a stadium had been built in the village with floodlights and the kids were attracted to it like moths to a flame. When I arrived in Georgia we only had two grounds up to standard; now we have at least 16. At that time we were behind the likes of Samoa, Canada and the USA, but we have beaten them all and attracted a strong following: the game against Wales is being televised live, free-to-air, and five companies bid for it.”
If they are looking to the future, they have a heritage too. Just as Wales can claim Cnapan – that form of medieval murderball played with tribal fervour between villages – as its rugby precursor, so Georgia have Lelo, the ancient folk sport that gives the side its nickname.
And they have a spirit embodied by Soso Matiashvili, the full-back whose miracle try has broken the internet this week. In their victory against Canada, his kick-chase looked futile as the ball looked certain to run out of play, but then he produced a Tom Daley-esque dive to touch down with millimetres to spare. Welsh referee Ben Whitehouse eventually awarded the try after a lengthy TMO consultation.
“It was teamwork, it was good defence and I got the ball, I chased it and the hard work from training worked out,” the player explained. “I was begging the ref to check it because I knew for sure that I had scored the try. When you play in your country and you have so many supporters, you can’t give up on this kind of chance.”
Georgia are pursuing a place at the sport’s top table with similar pride and determination. Today is their chance to prove they would be a welcome addition. And even if Wales are out of sight by half-time, for the good of the global game rugby should have Georgia on its mind.
IT has been described as one of the biggest matches in the history of Georgian rugby, a “seminal” afternoon in their quest to join Europe’s elite.
But can Georgia really upset the odds in their first Test match against Wales in Cardiff tomorrow?
Here, we assess the threats offered by the 12th-ranked side in world rugby and where a new-look Wales can exploit any weaknesses. There’s a lot riding on this game Georgian head coach Milton Haig has described this match as a World Cup final for his emerging side, a team now ranked above the likes of Italy, Tonga and Samoa.
This is a rare match in world rugby’s shop window for The Lelos, a chance to stake a further claim for entry into the promised land of the Six Nations.
Georgia have been knocking hard on the door for some time.
They enjoyed four years unbeaten in the second-tier Rugby Europe Championship before relinquishing their title to Romania this year.
At the 2015 Rugby World Cup, they beat Tonga and Namibia and put up a real fight against world champions New Zealand in Cardiff.
Haig has compared Georgia’s journey to that of Argentina, who after years of persistence were accepted into the southern hemisphere Rugby Championship in 2012 alongside the Tri Nations superpowers of New Zealand, Australia and South Africa.
“I think we have some hope of getting into the Six Nations,” insisted the New Zealander in an interview this week.
“There have been conversations and the new chief executive of the Rugby Football Union (Stephen Brown) has said that it may be time to look at Georgia coming in. That makes how we perform against Wales and Italy next week important.”
There is also a bit of added spice in that the countries also meet at the 2019 Rugby World Cup pool stage.
The Georgian players have been made well aware of what’s at stake. The Georgian scrum is a formidable weapon Scour the squad lists for France’s Top 14 championship and you will come across a Georgian forward at most of the clubs.
Of the side picked to face Wales on Saturday, loose-head prop Mikheil Nariashvili is a key member of the Montpellier eight, while tight-head Levan Chilachava is a cornerstone of a star-studded Toulon pack.
Second row Kote Mikautadze is also part of a cosmopolitan line-up on the Cote d’Azur, while flanker Viktor Kolelishvili is at French champions Clermont.
They are a formidable scrummaging force, something that drips down to their under-20s who destroyed virtually every opponent, Wales included, at the Junior World Championships in Manchester last year.
There is no doubt they will come at Wales at the set-piece, particularly as Warren Gatland has selected a rookie front five with just 29 caps to their name.
In last weekend’s 54-22 rout of Canada, two of Georgia’s tries came from powerful line-out rumbles.
Wales will be wary of getting caught in