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Georgia rugby chief's 3 minute rant at 'snub-nosed, retrograde' World Rugby officials
By Josh Raisey
The Georgian Rugby president Gocha Svanidze has sent a message on Twitter in light of World Rugby’s controversial proposal last week to set up a World League.
This league would be created at the expense of Georgia, as well as other Tier Two nations such as Fiji, Samoa and Tonga. This is despite Georgia being above Italy and the USA in the world rankings, who are in the league.
This is what Svanidze said:
This news would have been catastrophic for Georgia and many other countries, so it is understandable that Svanidze is bitter towards World Rugby and the way that Georgia has been treated.
He said that this treatment is “unacceptable” by “snub-nosed, retrograde officials” in World Rugby, who have neglected Georgia. This is in light of the fact that World Rugby had apparently promised Georgia two matches a year against Tier One nations from 2020, something that will clearly not happen if the new World League comes into force.
What seems clear, and will surely receive a lot of support from many nations, is Georgia’s determination for this not to happen. As a rugby nation, Georgia seem to be improving year on year. Their close encounter with Wales in the Autumn was indicative of how far they have come and how much they are improving.
Excluding Georgia from the chance to regularly play Tier One nations would see rugby development “stagnate”, according to Svanidze. That would surely be the case, as other fringe countries, such as the Pacific nations, would be left out in the cold, which would ultimately kill off international rugby in those parts of the world.
The proposal has seen a monumental backlash from all corners of the globe since it was unveiled last week, with a overwhelming majority of players, pundits and fans opposing the new system.
Georgia clearly have not given up hope, and Svanidze seems determined to stop this from happening.
Watch: Beaumont issues World League statement
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Agreed. And I don't have much more to say on it, but I had been having one thought that sprang to mind at the tail of this discussion, and that is that it's not all about Razor.
It's not about any coach being "right". I think a lot of selections can become defense and while it doesn't really apply here I really enjoyed that Andy Farrell just gave into the public demands and changed out his team for the change that had been asked for. Like why not? This is the countries team, keep them engaged. The whole reason i've only just finished watching the game was because I wasn't interested in watching any of the selected players against a team like Italy (still actually enjoyed the first half with the contest Italy made of it).
Faz leap frogs a younger half back into start. He hands the golden child the game over July's golden child. He gives an old winger a go, a new flanker and hooker. None of them really did any good, certainly not enough to suggest they should have been promoted above others, but who cares? You won, and you gave the country what they wanted, that's all that matters after all. It's for the country, not the one in charge who thinks they have to have their own pied piper tune playing.
Go to commentsAs Naas would say... A win is a win.
It was not perfect and at times frustrating. All 3 tests were not the best by the Boks and they still found ways to win.
Rassie would have noted the sloppyness at times and silly mistakes. The 9's made amateur handling mistakes when clearing the rucks in all 3 tests.
Once the "stupid" mistakes are eliminated, this Bok team will be very very hard to beat.
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