What's happening
South Africa - Georgia

October 24 Match

WHAT'S HAPPENING? (posted 24th October 2003)
After watching the Kiwis slaughter the Tongans in the first game last night I thought that the South Africa - Georgia match would be difficult to sit through, given that I had believed that Tonga would play a lot better than they had against NZ, and given that poor old Georgia was yet to even score a try in the World Cup 2003, and they were facing the big Boks! But, I was pleasantly surprised :)

South Africa got the proceedings underway with a penalty goal kick in the first two minutes of play, Derick Hougaard successfully putting the Boks 3-0 in the lead. For the next while though, Georgia put together some very solid phases of play and when RSA was pinged for offside play in the eleventh minute, Jimsheladze slotted a penalty for Georgia to even the scores.

Jimsheladze dropped the ball from the restart though! Argh! Danie Rossouw got his mitts on the ball and went over for an easy RAS try that Hougaard converted shortly before crossing himself for a five pointer which he also converted. Suddenly, the score was 17-3. In the twenty third minute Joe van Niekirk scored in the corner for RAS which Hougaard, who obviously had on his kicking boots also potted. In the twenty ninth minute though, Georgia kicked a penalty goal bringing the score to 24-6 where it remained for the rest of the first half. Danie Rossouw, playing in only his second test went over again for South Africa in the first two minutes of the second half. Shortly afterwards, Georgia got a penalty kick attempt when Stuart Dickinson detected South African hands in the ruck. Jimsheladze was successful and the Georgians were up to 9 points, equal to the most they'd scored in prevous games throughout the RWC 2003.

Hendro Scholtz got in some strife in the fifty third minute for killing the ball and was sent to cool his heels for ten minutes in the sin bin. The penalty Scholtz incurred led to a lineout near Georgia's try line and David Dadunashvili got the ball for Georgia and broke their RWC try drought! Yay! The conversion brought the score 29-16. Not too shabby at all!

Kvirikashvili added a further 3 points for Georgia with a penalty goal in the 57th minute, but it was downhill from there for the Georgians. Lelos, Fourie, Botha and Burger scored a try each from there to finish off the game giving the game a final score of 46-19 in favour of South Africa.

The Georgians put on a fine performance against the South Africans, who though they were running mostly their second string players they didn't perform particularly well. No doubt they would have been rather shaken up by failing to really put Georgia away until the final section of the game. The win and bonus point put South Africa on 10 points, equal with Samoa in Pool C but England has played one game less than both teams at this stage.