Italy vs Georgia: A statistical look

Italy vs Georgia

The crowd were treated to a proverbial game of two halves in Genoa on Saturday. Georgia took an 11-point lead into the break, before the Azzurri scored 14 unanswered points to secure victory.

Italy’s 11-point comeback was their biggest ever second-half turnaround in a test match. It surpassed their previous best of 10 points, which came just over a year ago when they defeated Uruguay at the Rugby World Cup, despite trailing by 10 points after 40 minutes.

Ultimately, Georgia were too starved of possession in the second half to be able to keep their own points tally ticking over. They made just 60 carries in total during the game, with only 13 of these coming in the second half, yielding no line breaks and just one defender beaten.

In contrast, Italy made 112 carries in the final 40 minutes, beating 21 defenders and making two line breaks. Wave after wave of Italian attack finally broke down the Georgian defence, with Italy eventually winning by three points.

The Lelos can take heart from their first-half performance and they defended incredibly well the whole game. Tornike Jalagonia made 30 tackles, the most of any player at the weekend and the most by anyone in an Autumn Nations Series fixture since Dalton Papali’i against Ireland in 2021 (30).

Italy, meanwhile, will be relieved to get back to winning ways after a heavy defeat in their opening game of the series against Argentina.