Georgia will be heading home after the first round, but will do so having achieved much. They comfortably beat a reasonable Romania side, ran Scotland close and deserved a far better scoreline (and more recovery time beforehand) against England. They owe much to the man they call Gorgodzilla, their superb flanker, serial MOTM award-getter and arguably the outstanding loose forward of the group stages. Mamuka Gorgodze has been wearing the No.7 shirt on his back, but to watch him, you suspect he’s a man on whom the subtleties of openside vs. blindside play are entirely lost. Whatever number he’s wearing, Gorgodzilla sees it as his mission to get his mitts on the ball as much as possible, smash any rucks when he isn’t the ball-carrier and cut down as many opponents as he can manage in 80 minutes. He’s no headless chicken though – he’s a good footballer with nice hands and an ability to put others around him into space. He also has an eye for the try-line and so it was no surprise to see him cross the whitewash for the pivotal try against Romania.So, to our first, sadly soon departing, Whiff of Cordite World Cup Hero, we salute Gorgodze – he’s 118kg of pure Georgian mongrel and he’d walk into most top tier nations’ teams. Top 14 forwards will sleep less easy once he heads back to Montpellier.
Whiff of Cordite 