The Georgia U-20 rugby team finished the group stage of World Rugby Trophy in the first place and will play in final for the first time.

In the third round, “Little Lelos” beat Portugal 19:11. After the meeting, team’s captain Badri Alkhazishvili said to journalist of “World Sport”:

“We are happy to be in final. Portugal played hardly and with great resistance. I want to thank them for the good and correct game”.

During this interview, the name of the second finalist was not revealed and accordingly, another question was about who they prefer as an opponent – Tonga or Canada, on which Alkhazishvili replied that the opponent did not matter: “When the Georgian team is united and support each other they will play well against any team”.

Team’s coach Zura Amonashvili estimated past game and talked about future prospects and preparation plans for final:

“I am satisfied with the result of course. First of all, I congratulate my boys and the whole Georgia. Until now, the third place was our best result at Trophy. We should not satisfy only with this result, our goals are much bigger!

As for today’s match, I repeat I am satisfied with the result, but not with the quality of game. We made many mistakes. It should be also said it was difficult to adapt to referee, which caused some problems. Soon after the start of the match, two players – Giorgi Melikadze and Roland Kvachadze got micro injuries and this put our plans into a mess, but now they are well.

I would like to commend the opponent. They had a few good opportunities to score, but did not use it.

We play against Canada in final – very organized and disciplined team. Its one of the strengths is a good scrum. We have studied our opponent at a certain level at the tournament and now we will study them more detailed. I think all the players manage to heal their traumas and we all will be in optimal condition for the final”.