POINTING THE WAY: Georgia's Kiwi coach Milton Haig has seen his team improve significantly since taking over in 2011

GLOUCESTER, 24 Sept – Georgia’s Kiwi coach Milton Haig has been pouring over tapes from Georgia’s last World Cup adventure and one game in particular – their last group-stage defeat, against Friday's Pool C opponents Argentina.

He has been looking for areas of improvement, he explains, having seen the team grow since he took over team operations following the RWC 2011 and claims that he now has charge of the fittest Georgian squad in its history.

Argentina have also been making inroads in the expanded Rugby Championship between World Cups, which as Haig pointed out has given the Pumas massive gains over the past three years.

But Haig believes his team’s exposure to the world’s best will lead to more success after their recent victory over the powerful Tongans.

ALL CHANGE

“We've changed a lot because, in my point of view, we're a lot fitter than 2011 team, and boys who were involved in the 2011 team have also said that they're a lot fitter, a lot stronger than they were in that tournament,” he said.

“Also, if you look at that match, and certainly I've looked at a lot of that footage over the years, we were pretty one-dimensional. We had our big forwards and we played through our big forwards, but once we released it to our backs we were a bit predictable. We didn't have any attack and I think now we have a lot more variation in our attack.”

In 2013, Georgia hosted the inaugural World Rugby Tbilisi Cup, which has tested the nation's younger developing players against their Tier 1 counterparts, including Argentina, Ireland and Italy.

Haig would like to see Georgia join an expanded European championship, encompassing seven nations with Georgia invited as the addition to the existing six. There are parallels between the two teams set to meet at Kingsholm on Friday but, with Argentina now pushing the likes of New Zealand, Haig accepts that it is the Pumas who are the emerging nation.

“Now that they play in the Rugby Championship every year, that's a massive advantage to them. They're tested hard against three of the best teams in the world, so it's a really good grounding for your team to improve all its skills and to make good decisions under pressure.

“The Tbilisi Cup from our point of view is seen as a development competition. The June window is never great for us because we never access our best team in June consistently. They've had big seasons in France, so a lot of our top players are unavailable for the Tblisi Cup, so we certainly see it as a development window for us."

RNS si/jp/jrl/ej