Gloucester, England: Georgia earned a significant edge in the race to third place in Rugby World Cup Pool C when they manhandled Tonga 17-10 at Kingsholm on Saturday.
The two are in the same pool as New Zealand and Argentina, and targeted this match as soon as the draw was made last year as winnable.
For the Lelos, as Georgia are known, it was only their third win at their fourth Rugby World Cup. It may yet help them finish their pool in third, at least, and automatically qualify for the 2019 tournament in Japan.
Tonga beat Georgia in Tbilisi last November, and the Georgians avenged that on the biggest stage of them all, and celebrated like they’d made the final.
The match played out as advertised: two macho packs butting heads. Georgia proved to have the harder heads.
Georgia were comfortable letting the Tongans crash against their defense. Their rush tactics contained the more dangerous Tonga backs, giving them no space, and Tonga ball-carriers, direct as always, frequently met double tackles, and didn’t come out of the collisions well.
Tonga struggled to string moves together in perfect conditions, while Georgia caught Tonga’s defense sleeping twice to score two tries for a 17-3 lead going into the last quarter.
Tonga had two tries disallowed on review, and didn’t finally breach the Georgians until eight minutes to go, through left wing Fetu’u Vainikolo, whose 15th try in 22 tests gave him sole possession of the national test tries record.
Georgia set a record, too: Scrumhalf Vasil Lobzhanidze became the youngest player in Rugby World Cup history, at 18. He played like a veteran, and saved a try, too.
Tonga’s defense was equally rugged, but both Georgia tries came too easy. At 3-3 with nearly half an hour gone, Georgia worked the ball from a lineout to right in front of Tonga’s posts. For some reason, the Tonga forwards fanned out, allowing Georgia captain Mamuka Gorgodze to pick and go from four meters out, carrying Tonga flyhalf Kurt Morath as he plunked the ball beside the left post.
Right on halftime, Tonga had a try disallowed off a neat lineout move, when flanker Nili Latu’s pop pass to charging No. 8 Viliami Ma’afu was ruled forward.
Following a first half without a single line break, the game finally produced one nearly an hour in when flanker Giorgi Tkhilaishvili caught a kick in his own half, and fed fullback Merab Kvirikashvili, who turboed round the on-rushing Tongans, danced along the right touchline, swerved in, and found support. Georgia mauled on the left, the ball popped out, and Tkhilaishvili picked up, dodged a tackle, and had only grass in front of him.
A few minutes later, Tonga’s luck deserted them again when the ball was kicked into the Georgia in-goal, and Lobzhanidze’s desperation kick jolted the ball from the grasp of Tonga center Siale Piutau.
The try finally came from Vainikolo, thanks to a long pass from Ma’afu, and Morath converted it from the left sideline. But Georgia managed the clock and Tonga’s crumbling set-pieces to put another win beside Namibia at Lens in 2007, and Romania at Palmerston North in 2011.
