The debut of the Georgian club rugby at European tournaments did not turn out good. After losing to “Rovigo” 18:22 in Italy, everybody was expecting the second leg with great interest but unfortunately, the opponent won 24:21 in Tbilisi.  

At the post-match press conference Giorgi Nizharadze, president of the Georgian Rugby Union, and coaches talked about the match and future plans:

Levan Maisashvili (head coach of “Tbilisi Caucasians”): “We played worse than in Italy. We made a lot of mistakes and nobody would forgive us. “Rovigo” is better club than us. The opponent was better in class but even in this situation we could have won the match. This year we had debut at European tournaments. We lacked experience.

In Italy we scored both two tries with open and fast game. We had some chances in the first half. We spent the first 15 minutes of the second half on the half of the opponent but in vain”.

Giorgi Nizharadze (president of the Georgian Rugby Union): “The match finished with logical result and the club with better class won. I cannot say that the Italians offered us something special but they made less mistakes than us. However, we could have won even in this situation. We saw team candidates are better than other rugby players. Coaches of Super League teams must take this into consideration and work on it.

We are maximalists and we want to achieve success but we must remember that budget of “Rovigo” is higher than ours. Finances decide a lot in rugby. The boys did everything but lack of experience could not let them use advantage. We have a year for the preparation and perhaps, next year we will play with this club again. We must analyze the reasons why we lost today and we must work harder. I believe we can make through to the group stage.

Unfortunately, about 30 rugby players of the first line are abroad. We must do something to stop it. I want to thank the boys for their devotion”.

Andrea De Rossi (head coach of “Rovigo”): “The Georgian rugby is developing. Italy and Georgia are together in the ranking. Even one point is not different between them. It was very important for us to play in front of so many people. We played quite strong team. I want to praise the Georgians and also, to thank my boys who fought till the end. Some of them have played against the Georgians at Tbilisi Cup. They knew what it means to play the local team in Tbilisi.  

Going through the group stage was our program minimum and maximum. We cannot dream about overcoming it because “Cardiff”, “London Irish” and “Grenoble” have much higher budget than us. I think today’s match showed that the third level tournament must be established. For me it is very interesting to learn about different country’s rugby culture”.

Zura Ksovreli