Georgia gives birth to future as Boks shaken

South Africa 46 Georgia 19

Less than a week after they had threatened to derail England’s World Cup dream, the mighty Springboks were on the end of one of the most humbling evenings they could ever have endured.

Few of the 34,000 who were at Aussie Stadium to witness it will forget the moment when Georgian hooker David Dadunashvili peeled off a ruck, plunged over the line and became the first person from his proud country to score a try at the Rugby World Cup.

“We always say our rugby father is Georgian and our mother is French, because that is where most of our players are,” said Georgian Rugby vice-president Zara Kassachvili.

“Now we have a baby and that is Australian. We don’t know how much it will grow in the future but we call on the rugby authorities to give it a chance.”

When Dadunashvili created his own piece of history, his country were just 13 points adrift of a Springbok side who were down to 14 men following the sin-binning of Hendro Schultz.

If winger Archil Kavtarashvili had been able to cling onto the interception he looked set to take shortly afterwards and then run clear 80 metres in front of him without being caught, South Africa would have been quaking in their sturdy boots and we could easily have been recording one of the greatest sporting upsets of all time.

As it was, the Georgian winger could not keep hold, the chance went and the Springboks managed to clear their heads for long enough to tie up the game.

“We have to forget what happened,” admitted defiant coach Rudi Straeuli.

“You have to give credit to the Georgians, they defended like Trojans. The big disappointment for us was that we lost our structure and gave away silly penalties. That is not acceptable.”

SOUTH AFRICA: Loubscher, Terblanche, Fourie, Greeff, Paulse, Hougaard, de Kock, Sephaka, Smit, Rautenbach, Botha, Boome, Scholtz, Rossouw, van Niekerk. Replacements: Muller for Greeff (77), Santon for Sephaka (69), Burger for van Niekerk (64).

GEORGIA: Machkhaneli, Khonelidze, Eloshvili, Katsadze, Kavtarachvili, Jimsheladze, Modebadze, Kopaliana, Dudunashvili, Margvelashvili, Gujaraidze, Didebulidze, Bolghashvili, Tsiklauri, Chkhaidze. Replacements: Khamashuridze for Machkhaneli (63), Kvirikashvili for Jimsheladze (61), A. Guiorgadze for Dudunashvili (75), Nikolaenko for Margvelashvili (75).