With the pitch drenched in sun on one half of the pitch as the sun was setting in Tbilisi. Georgia embarked upon what turned out to be a masterclass of rugby against the newcomers to the Rugby Europe Championships. With Switzerland receiving a true welcome to the level of rugby that Georgia have set at the top of this Championships.
Aprasidze (3', 54'), Kveseladze (16'), Japaridze (21'), Kakhoidze (25'), Matkava (27'), Kvatadze (39'), Tabutsadze (46', 67'), Ivanishvili (51'), Aptsiauri (58', 70'), Spanderashvili (60'), Alania (63'), Shvangiradze (76'), Khaindrava (80')
Tries
Matkava (4', 17', 22', 26', 28', 40', 47', 52'), Niniashvili (55', 59', 61', 64', 71', 77', 81')
Conversions
With the pitch drenched in sun on one half of the pitch as the sun was setting in Tbilisi. Georgia embarked upon what turned out to be a masterclass of rugby against the newcomers to the Rugby Europe Championships. With Switzerland receiving a true welcome to the level of rugby that Georgia have set at the top of this Championships.
After only 3 minutes, Georgia managed to charge down a clearance kick and after an error from Switzerland, when they couldn’t dot down in their try area. Georgia pounced to start what was the first of 16 tries in the afternoon.
The Georgian pack set the tone early doors with their scrum dominance where a number of Swiss props could be seen popping out the top of the scrum like a Whack a Mole toy back in the good old days.
But after the first 15 minutes, which was error strewn by both sides. Georgia still only lead, 7-0.
With Georgia’s, attacking options from expansive free flowing rugby to up the jumper pick and goes. The Lelos added to the scoreline on the 16th, 21st, 25th, 27th and 39th minutes before half time.
With Luka Matkava’s metronomic boot, making every conversion of the half, the scoreline sat at 42-0 to the home side.
Switzerland were fronting up at every attempt but just like Germany on Friday night. Errors at the set piece and missed tackles were really killing there attempts to stem the Georgian flood. Lazlo Pschorn was topping the tackle stats with 17 tackles made but only 1 missed giving him 94.44% on tackles made, which in comparison to others that got 100% for less tackles. Then massive shout out for his endeavours out there.
Sadly, Lazlo and his cohorts could not stop what Georgia unleashed in the second half. Where a further 10 tries were run in with a wide variety of rugby methods, the main issue was the slipped tackle and the space that opened up subsequently. With the classic up the jumper grunt work thrown in to add the excitement for the forwards too.
Georgia brought their bomb squad on at the 49th minute, and that could be seen from further scrum dominance and the platform created to let the backs loose.
There was 2 stand out tries from the second half, when in the 70th minute Aptsiauri dotted down in the corner after Georgia won the ball back in their own half. Georgia turned in to the Harlem Globetrotters and the way to the try line where nearly every player on the team got their hands on the ball in the move and slipped their way through tackles or cat flapped in contact.
The final try of the day was run in by Khaindrava, who received a sublime offload from Luka Ivanishvili near the halfway line. Then turned into a try seeking missile, pinballing his way to the try line bouncing every tackler coming and a turn of pace when needed. Ended up with a try up the sticks.
Georgia keep banging that drum about Promotion and Relegation with the 6 Nations, but sadly that is falling on deaf ears.
Switzerland got a true baptism of fire on their REC debut but have to take positives from the periods of the game where they kept the Georgians at bay and managed to force errors from a team that are clearly levels ahead at the moment.
With Switzerland hosts Spain next weekend, they will have a busy week ahead to work on their carry ons and use the home advantage for them.
Georgia hosts the Netherlands, who will be looking to stamp their claim in the REC too. That will be a great contest ahead.
| # | Team | PL | W | L | D | PD | BP | PTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Georgia | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 110 | 1 | 05 |
| 2 |  Spain | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 29 | 1 | 05 |
| 3 |  Netherlands | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | -29 | 0 | 00 |
| 4 |  Switzerland | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | -110 | 0 | 00 |
