ONE of Georgia’s claims to fame is that it is the birthplace of wine, with archaeologists discovering wine presses dating back to the year dot. It is even said that the word “wine” is derived from the ancient Georgian word “gwino”. Whether you buy into that or not, the Georgian rugby equivalent of “gwino” is more heavy claret than champagne, because there is little that is bubbly or effervescent about the way they play — but it packs some punch, Ireland found to their cost last night.
With this match against Ireland being played in Bordeaux, the home of claret, there was no shortage of support for the Georgians — or Ireland for that matter — with a full house of 32,000 at the Stade Chaban-Delmas, and it took less than a minute for the minnows to make a fairly hefty mark, barrelling into the ruck and shaking up Peter Stringer enough for him to send his first pass fizzing well wide of Ronan O’Gara’s hands.
Georgia are essentially a straight up-and-down side who base their game around forward clout, with a big, grizzled pack drawn from the murky depths of the French second division, and fly-halves such as Mershab Kvirikashvili who kick like mules. The are not big on the subtler touches, but fail to handle their full bodied approach and they have the capacity to leave you feeling a little the worse for wear.
That was where Ireland found themselves after the first half-hour, with Rory Best translating virtually the only their only passage of coherent forward play, a five-metre drive on Paul O’Connell’s lineout take, into seven points, but elsewhere the men in green struggled to get the upper hand in the arm wrestle with the Georgian forwards.
The Georgians have improved out of sight since their World Cup baptism in Australia four years ago, as you might expect from a rugby country who are no strangers to self-help, with the most famous example being the scrum machines they made from old Soviet tractors. For most of the first half their pack resembled a tractor stuck in first gear and Ireland were able to make little headway at the scrum or in the mauls, with the Georgians actually securing an extraordinary 67% possession in the first-half.
The Georgians’ nickname, “The Lelos”, is derived from lelo, an indigenous Georgian rugby-like sport that predates William Webb Ellis’s pick up the ball and run with it innovation by at least 200 years. The white-shirted Georgian backrow, led by George Chkhaidze, certainly looked at home in the loose, scavenging like hungry bears, and the bonus point the Irish so desperately needing their tussle with France and Argentina to qualify for the knock-out stages looked well nigh unattainable at the interval.
Georgia’s ability to stand toe-to-toe with Ireland also speaks volumes for the competitiveness of the French second division.
There are about 100 professional Georgian rugby players who currently play for French clubs, and 27 of the 30 man squad in this tournament are plying their trade in France.
Lelo has been adopted as the Georgian word for a try, and a standard cheer of Georgian rugby union fans is “Lelo, Lelo, Sakartvelo” (Try, Try, Georgia), although it was not one heard very often before the interception try by Giorgi Shkinin after Stringer’s suicidal pass to Brian O’Driscoll just after the break. It was only Georgia’s second try in World Cup history, but it certainly fired their ambition for more as they went for the Irish jugular.
Maybe the Irish scrum-half got carried away by the fact that, for once, he was not the smallest player on the pitch, that honour going to the livewire Georgian No 9, Bidzina Samkhardaze.
Whatever the reason, it was the moment that the Irish contingent in the crowd feared that they were about to suffer the biggest humiliation the World Cup has witnessed.
Why? Because they were playing against a country with only eight dedicated rugby pitches and a mere 300 registered players.
This reflects an historical lack of resources, something gradually addressed by the International Rugby Board’s Tier Two funding scheme. It does not reflect the popularity of the sport in the Caucasus. A few years ago a game against the old enemy, Russia, drew a crowd of 45,000 in Tiblisi.
What is certain is that Georgia’s remarkable performance against Ireland made a nonsense of their current world ranking at 17, and it will almost certainly ruin the IRB’s plan to reduce the number of competing nations in the 2011 World Cup to 16.
For a team with tiny resources compared with Ireland, this was one of the most remarkable performance in World Cup history, ranking alongside Western Samoa’s victory over Wales in 1991.
But for three dropped goals these Georgians would have become rugby’s new immortals. As Georgia’s captain, lock Ilia Zedginidze marshalled his men for one last assault at the Irish line, it seemed that the heavy-duty Georgians were about to turn international rugby on its head — but Ireland just managed to keep theirs and avoid the mother and father of all World Cup headaches.
However, there was little doubt that in Bordeaux last night the real glory was Georgia’s as they emerged as a team with a spirit that was truly unquenchable. Raise a glass of gwino to Georgia.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/rug...icle2462458.ece 
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