History-making Georgia target top 10

Up to a record high of 11th in the World Rugby Rankings on the back of a superb Rugby World Cup 2015 campaign and an unbeaten first-ever tour of the Pacific islands, these are indeed heady times for Georgian rugby.

No sooner had the dust settled on the 14-3 win over Fiji at the end of June than the Lelos were thinking about the November tests and the opportunity to make more headlines.

“Before we left Fiji we spoke as a group about how a good November tour would get us into the world's top 10, which was a two-year target of ours as soon as the World Cup was over," said Lelos head coach Milton Haig

“We’ve got Samoa and Japan back in Tbilisi and Scotland away, and who’s to say we can’t cause an upset in Scotland? Obviously that will be very, very difficult because Scotland under Vern Cotter are a different team these days than they used to be.

“But the World Cup and Pacific tour have given us a massive boost of confidence and as we all know in sport if you get a roll on and confidence starts to build, things can happen.

“It (the Scotland game) is not something we are afraid of. We certainly want to be ranked in the top 10 by the end of the year, and if we work hard we think we can achieve that."

NEW APPROACH

Georgia were ranked 15th when Haig took over in December 2011, and while a four-place rise in the intervening years may only hint at incremental progress, the reality is that they are a world away from the one-dimensional team who were also-rans at RWC 2011.

Adding a touch of backline flair to a team of big men with big hearts, New Zealander Haig has overseen a dramatic upturn in the standing of the team at home and abroad.

“Watching the 2011 World Cup they were pretty one-dimensional: big, physical boys who were very set-piece orientated. We needed to learn more about the game and make decisions under pressure and attack teams by playing with a bit more width," he stated.

“So we have tried to add a few more strings to our bow other than just our forwards. The Pacific islands tour taught us that if we didn’t have another weapon to our armoury, then we were going to be found out.

“What I was really pleased about was that while they had brilliant individuals on their team, we probably created more opportunities through our attacking structure than they did.”

STRENGTH IN DEPTH

Automatic qualification for RWC 2019 courtesy of the Lelos’ third-place pool finish in England last year, plus the unavailability of several of his France-based stars, meant Haig was afforded the opportunity to try out some new combinations and also bring some fringe players back into the fold during their three-week stay in the Pacific.

They kicked off with a 19-19 draw against Samoa in Apia before beating Tonga, just as they had at RWC 2015, and then Fiji in Suva.

“If you look at all our stats compared to World Cup around our set piece, our attack and our cleaning out, they show we are a lot better team now than we were at the World Cup," Haig revealed.

“When you take into consideration that it was our first Pacific tour and we were playing the likes of Samoa and Fiji in their own home ground, not many teams go there and win or draw, so I think for me it is up there alongside the effort we put in at the World Cup.

“Having guys away competing for their clubs forced us to bring in some other players to see if we could create a bit more depth to what we already had in some key positions.

“We have got props coming out of our ears if I am being honest, and tight-head Irakli Mirtskhulava was another to put his hand up on tour - as was number eight Beka Bitsadze, who just missed out on the final cut for the World Cup. I was really pleased for them because they hadn’t played for the national team for a couple of years.

CONSISTENCY

“Beka is only playing Federale 1 (third tier in France) but we’ve had a few enquiries from agents representing higher level clubs since the Pacific tour.”

Haig is the first to acknowledge the input of World Rugby in establishing a more competitive playing programme for his adopted country, and the role that that has played in raising standards.

“We’ve now played Samoa twice in the last couple of years and Japan three times, so we’ve got better games and we’ve been more successful," he said.

“The more often we win test matches and do consistently well at test level, the more people will sit up and take notice.

“Our job isn’t to wait for people to invite us (into competitions), it is to go out and actively seek competitive games from World Rugby, who, Mark Egan and Peter Horne in particular, have helped us magnificently with our development.

“The more success we have on the field that can only help us when we’re at the negotiating table fighting alongside the likes of Japan and Fiji for games against tier one nations.”

A NEW CHALLENGE

Egan, World Rugby's Head of Competitions and Performance, explains the new approach to enable Georgia to continue to improve on the world stage. 

“We were delighted with Georgia’s performances during the June tour to the Pacific islands,” said Egan.

“When we reviewed their RWC performances with Milton Haig and the coaching staff last November, we agreed that as they have already pre-qualified for RWC 2019 we needed a new approach for the national team in terms of the June and November window competition programme. 

“While hosting the Tbilisi Cup tournament in June provided a great development platform for the national team programme over the last RWC cycle, we agreed with Milton that we needed to get the players out of their comfort zone so that they could challenge themselves in a totally different living and playing environment. 

“Milton fully embraced the idea of a tour to the Pacific islands and felt that his players were ready to rise to the challenge that this would bring both psychologically and physically. To come back from that tour with two wins and a draw is an outstanding achievement for the squad, who can now look forward to the November window where they face Japan, Samoa and Scotland with great confidence.”