Sherikadze’s out to spring a Pumas-style surprise

GEORGIA have lost each of their previous four meetings with Ireland and are yet to score a point in the Autumn Nations Cup.

But captain Merab Sharikadze, right, who plays for Stade Aurillacois Cantal Auverge in the French ProD2, will lead his country out in Dublin today bidding to spring an upset.

Sharikadze, 27, believes Ireland – ranked fifth in the world – should be considered among rugby’s leading nations despite recent defeats to England and France.

He said: “I would say Ireland are one of the top teams in the world, and you cannot really say if they are first or fifth.

“We’ve seen Argentina beat New Zealand two weeks ago and today they lost, so you can’t really tell who is a better team. It’s decided on the game day. “One day Ireland will win and the following week the opposition will win.” The Lelos went down 18-0 to Wales last weekend, following a 40-0 drubbing against England.

Head coach Levan Maisashvili has made six changes to the team beaten in Llanelli, with Soso Matiashvili and Tamaz Mchedlidze returning to the backline and Shalva Mamukashvili, Nodar Cheishvili, Lasha Jaiani and Tornike Jalagonia coming into the forward pack.

Centre Sharikadze, who has spent his entire club career in France, has called for the team to be more efficient with their chances.

“We need to use our opportunities better. Every time we have an opportunity to score, we need to score,” he said. “At the moment we haven’t been very careful with that, so we wasted quite big opportunities.

“Hopefully we can be better than that.”