Full back Soso Matiashvili scored a Georgian record 34 points in the game as he helped himself to two tries and kicked 24 points to complete the double over the Canadians this year. Georgia, ranked 12th in the world, will make their debut against Wales as they return to the Welsh capital two years on from facing the All Blacks there at the last World Cup.
Saturday’s fixture to be a pre-cursor to the meeting of the two nations at the 2019 World Cup in Japan and the Georgians will arrive hoping to prove they are a match for the established Six Nations countries as they bid for inclusion in the tournament in the future. They played Scotland at this time last year.
Canadian skipper Phil Mack did his best to try to inspire his side and sparked two of the three tries by the visitors with quick tap penalties. Taylor Paris got the first and then DTH van der Merwe crossed for the other to raise his Canadian try record to 26.
The third try came on the hour from outside half Bruce Staller, who also kicked the rest of the points for Canada. That closed the gap to 18 points at 40-22, but two more home tries in the final 10 minutes sealed another notable triumph for Milton Haig’s side.
Matiashvili opened the scoring in the second minute after a pin-point cross kick left a gaping hole in the visitors’ defence. He added the conversion, kicked three penalties and put over a second conversion of a driving maul try on the stroke of half-time that gave the Georgians a 23-8 lead.
The powerful Georgian scrum and driving maul caused Canada no end of problems and it was no surprise to see Toulon prop Levan Chilichava burrowing over for a try that made it 33-8 11 minutes into the second half.
Skipper and centre Merab Sharikadze then picked up a charge down try before Matiashvili had a thrilling kick and chase score ratified by the TMO after he performed a flying dive to touch down a fraction of an inch short of the dead ball line. The final try came from replacement prop Kakha Asieshvili.
