For the Wallabies, nothing short of a full five point haul will be considered success while the Georgians will be keen to show they can mix it with the Tier 1 nations once again having beaten Wales during the gap between the 2019 and 2023 World Cups.
Australia v Georgia
Saturday 9 September
Stade de France
Australia 1/33 | Draw 45/1 | Georgia 10/1
Eddie Jones is either going to come out of this World Cup with his reputation as a mercurial genius back intact or with the rugby populous thinking he has completely lost the plot.
The former England mentor has not been scared to shake things up since returning to the Australian coaching helm and he did exactly that when picking his World Cup squad leaving out Quade Cooper and going with just one out and out fly half in the form of young gun Carter Gordon, who has just over a handful of international caps.
Cooper wasn’t the only Australian veteran to miss out on selection with former Wallaby talisman, Michael Hooper, also cut from the squad. However, in Hooper’s case there’s less controversy with the Waratahs man struggling with injury in 2023.
To further compound Australia’s loss of experience, prop Allan Alaalatoa sustained a ruptured achilles. Youngsters Zane Nonggorr was called up to the squad in the verteran’s stead.
While Australia will field a rather youthful side for their opener, Georgia will go with the tried and tested as they have a very seasoned squad with only a few Fresh faces floating around including recent Under 20 graduate Luka Ivanishvili and Tornike Kakhoidze, who turned out for the Georgian Under 20’s at the Junior Championship in South Africa just a few months ago.
In terms of the sides warm-up games, the Wallabies suffered defeats at the hands of France 41-7, while Georgia beat Romania 56-6, the United States 22-7 and went down 33-6 to Scotland in a game that was a lot tighter than the scoreboard suggests.
There’s a tiny plus handicap on Georgia and I will be grabbing as much of it as I can as quickly as I can as it is likely to shorten as this is a solid bet.
Verdict: Georgia +
