Rugby is an important part of life in Georgia and their national team the Lelos, have overcome massive odds to be where they are today
With the subtropical Black Sea coast to the west, the 5000m Caucasus mountains to the north and a trio of UNESCO World Heritage sites, not to mention a dominant international rugby side, Georgia packs plenty into the land it calls home.
Read the Official Wallabies-Georgia Test Program here!
Holding a population just shy of four million, a third of which live in Tbilisi, the Mongols, Persians, Ottomans and Russians all left their mark, but much of its recent history has been under the cloud of Russian rule.
First annexed in the late 19th century, Georgia briefly emerged as an independent state after the 1917 Russian Revolution, only to once again be invaded by the Red Army in 1921, under the command of Georgian-born Joseph Stalin.
The first decade of post-Soviet independence brought economic crisis, political instability and war, but peaceful revolutions in November 2003 instigated a series of democratic reforms that facilitated a truly remarkable economic and social recovery. And it was in those years, as the nation found its feet, that Georgian rugby truly began to flourish.
After a number of false dawns, the first green shoots of rugby’s potential were seen in 1959 when a training session was organised at the Tbilisi Hippodrome by a university team.
Clubs quickly began to spring up, the Georgia Rugby Union was founded in 1964, and by 1978 a club called Lokomotivi, based in Tbilisi, lifted the Soviet Cup.
Twelve years later, with the Soviet era almost at an end, Georgia arrived on the international scene with that Zimbabwe win.
Georgia had taken to rugby with ease, but they already had it in their blood in the form of Lelo Burti, an ancient full-contact game where two villages fight for a leather ball, traditionally packed with sand and doused in wine.
While still played in its traditional form today, the game had become standardised on a proper pitch with XV-a-side teams, making the transition to rugby straightforward.
War and instability stifled progress in the 1990s, the national team surviving on a handful of practice balls and old Soviet tractors turned into scrum machines, and yet even then Georgia came within just a few points of qualifying for the 1999 World Cup, agonisingly losing on aggregate to Tonga in a two-leg playoff.
Thanks to a Frenchman called Claude Saurel, who joined the union in 1995 as advisor and then head coach, Georgian players had been given the opportunity to leave the county and compete in the French leagues, accelerating their development.
“This was a period when there was nothing for rugby, no opportunity, no pitch, no balls, it was a really difficult setting,” says Tornike Gogebashvili, CEO of the Georgia Rugby Union.
“These guys were real heroes for Georgian rugby, because that generation made a lot of the first steps to grow rugby from nothing. Going to France was a big opportunity for us.”
So rapidly did Saurel’s plan come to fruition that, in 2001, Georgia were crowned European champions for the first time and, in 2003, they qualified for the World Cup.
With England, South Africa, Samoa and Uruguay in their group they didn’t manage to secure a win, but the physical prowess they showed against the Springboks proved they were here to stay.
Georgia had something that separated them from other fledging rugby nations. “Across the centuries, because of our location we’ve had a lot of attacks from different empires and neighbours who wanted to control our territory,” explains Tornike, “but we managed to save our identity – we developed a culture, we saved our language and alphabet, and we had to fight for it and be very strong as a small nation.
“Because of this, the game of rugby, which is all about fighting for each other, is very close to our soul. It was easy for us to understand the mentality of this sport, and without it, it would have been impossible for us to get the results we have.”
The 2007 World Cup was the defining moment for rugby in Georgia. Not only did they record their first World Cup win, 30-0 against Namibia, but they almost dealt Ireland the greatest of World Cup upsets, narrowly losing 14-10 against the Six Nations runners-up.
This was a time when Georgia’s rugby infrastructure was still unimaginably underdeveloped, with no full-time training base for the national team and no more than eight pitches in the whole country, half of which were shared with football.
Today, 17 years on, the landscape of rugby in Georgia is unrecognisable. “In 2022, we had our historical win against Italy [Georgia’s first against a Tier One nation], and after this we had our game against Cardiff in Wales [winning 13-12],” Tornike continues.
“Besides this, in 2021 we created the first Georgian franchise, Black Lion, it was historical and a dream of all Georgian players and supporters, with 60 per cent of the players from the national team.
“This year, we have games against two Tier One countries, Japan [who they beat 23-25 last weekend in Sendai] and Australia. We also have great news, with Georgia joining the Six Nations under-18s for the first time – they have also asked us about an under-18s women’s team. At the moment we only have a [women’s] sevens team after Covid, but for September we have to make a women’s team that will participate in next year’s Under-18s Six Nations.”
Quicker than any other nation, Georgia has established itself as a major player. Landmark results over the last decade are markers of their measured progress: a 16-15 win against Samoa in 2013, then ranked eighth in the world; a 17-10 win over Tonga at the 2015 World Cup; victory away in Fiji by 14-3 in 2016; then 2022, the year they broke their Tier One duck.
While the 2023 World Cup ended in disappointment, coming home with only a draw against Portugal, 2024 brings fresh promise with more Tier One fixtures in the calendar.
But how did Georgia achieve this remarkable development in such a short space of time? Well, by getting Georgia’s richest man on board, of course. Inspired by their performances at the 2007 World Cup, billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili – who later founded Georgia’s ruling party, Georgian Dream, and was elected Prime Minister – started the Cartu Foundation.
This charitable organisation has since put the equivalent of £80 million into Georgia rugby, principally through building 14 high-performance centres across the country, this infrastructure forming the foundations of Georgia’s development over the past two decades.
“Still today, the Cartu Foundation is with Georgia rugby, supporting us every time,” says Tornike. “I’m sure that, as a result of this, we started winning, and winning against Tier One countries.”
With the foundation’s funding targeted at infrastructure rather than the operational costs, the Georgia union has still had familiar battles with financial stability – emerging from Covid, the union was in the midst of a financial crisis, just shy of £2m in debt and with a budget of only £4.25 million.
Adding to this crisis, the union’s presidential elections in 2020/21 turned ugly as Irakli Abuseridze, elected in December 2020, had his appointment rejected by the Georgian government citing ‘procedural violations’.
In March 2021, current president Soso Tkemaladze, reportedly a close associate of éminence grise Bidzina Ivanishvili, was elected instead as the only candidate, with violent protests between each candidate’s supporters breaking out over claims of political meddling.
In the midst of these elections, it was Tornike who took over as interim president before later taking his post as CEO, overseeing the recovery from their financial difficulties.
“It was a terrible period because of the crisis, but we overcame the problems,” he says. “In 2021, when Soso was elected, everything changed here. We started negotiations with the government to let them see the whole picture and what the potential is from Georgia rugby.
From this, government started increasing the budget, and it’s increased already four times since 2020.”
Today, the union’s budget sits at around £14 million, £10 million of which comes from the government.
With infrastructure in place across the country, development at the international level has been supplemented by significant improvements domestically. “In our top domestic championship, Didi 10, most of them are professional clubs. Then we have our first division, which at the moment we are helping with the marketing side and to create structures.”
Georgia’s small playing pool is only set to grow, but even now they are punching globally, particularly at the age grade level: while the national team has recorded two wins against Tier One opposition, the under-20s have nine to their name.
The under-18s joining the Six Nations is a crucial first step for Georgia, one that World Rugby has supported the union in achieving.
“In 2021, Sir Bill Beaumont, Alan Gilpin, everybody came to Georgia,” reveals Tornike.
“We have really big support from their side, and they started to help us in negotiation with the Six Nations. Last year they agreed that under-18s would join and now we are talking under-20s.
“We had a really good team last year in the World Championships, so I hope maybe next year, maybe two years after, they will join the Six Nations.”
Rugby is one thing, but when it comes to the Six Nations, the real sticking point is commercial.
Each of the member unions and federations has a financial stake in the competition and won’t want that to be diluted.
“We have to do much more, there is no point where we’re happy with what we’ve done,” admits Tornike. “We need supporters for every game to come to stadiums. We saw the game against Clermont when more than 17,000 supporters came to support Black Lion [in the Challenge Cup], it is our best result for supporters.”
Georgia captain Merab Sharikadze made his debut 14 years ago as an energetic 18-year-old
“If you don’t play against those [Tier One] teams, how are you going to improve?” he says.
“I’m not saying that we deserve to be in the Six Nations, I’m saying rugby deserves tournaments to be more open.
“The strategy that rugby is going in [the closed-off World League], I’m not a fan of it, but maybe it is the road we need to go on, and maybe at some time something will change, and we’ll be a part of it.”
