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The one question everyone is asking as 'scared' Wales confirm schedule
Wales’ Autumn Nations Series schedule announcement has been met with one response- where is Georgia?
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The fixtures for Wales’ November were revealed on Monday, with Warren Gatland’s side taking on Fiji, Australia and South Africa in consecutive weeks.
However, fans had been teased with the idea of a clash between the Guinness Six Nations Wooden Spoon recipients and the Rugby Europe Championship winners Georgia.
This came after Georgia publicly called out Wales on social media in March, proposing a meeting between the two in Tbilisi. While this seemed like nothing more than a publicity stunt, Wales turned the dial up when they responded to the message on social media by saying they will be “in touch”.
Whether the two sides were in touch or not is not clear, but nothing has come from the episode in March, which has left fans online thoroughly disappointed.
🚨 Autumn Nations Series fixtures announced
🏴 Cymru'n cyhoeddi gemau Cyfres yr Hydref 2024
🎟️ Half-price tickets for U18s in all categories and tickets from £20!
For all the info 👇
— Welsh Rugby Union 🏴 (@WelshRugbyUnion) April 22, 2024
After announcing their schedule online, the comments section was almost filled up entirely with fans questioning what happened to the match against Georgia that was dangled in front of them.
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“Gatland’s Dragons running from the Georgian Grind?” “Scared to play Georgia?” and “They ducked Georgia,” are just some of the comments which give a glimpse into how this schedule has been received.
Other fans are still holding out hope that the Georgia fixture will be announced at a later date. With the first match of the autumn coming against Fiji on November 10, there is the potential to face Georgia the weekend before and still remain within the Test window. However, that is just wishful thinking from fans as it stands.
While a potential match between Wales and Georgia would not have any bearing on the make-up of the Six Nations next year, Georgia described it as the match “rugby lovers everywhere want to see” as it would be a bellwether as to where the bottom team of the Six Nations stands compared to the rest of Europe.
Quite frankly, all this is a bit pathetic. The first time Wales get the Wooden Spoon in 21 years and everyone is on the bandwagon for a ‘play-off’ game.
Wales have no obligation to Georgia and no obligation to the rest of the Six Nations to play such a game.
If they want Georgia in so badly then they need to include South Africa into a Northern Hemisphere competition with 2 leagues of 4 teams with the top 2 competing for the Championship.
Sadly, this will end Triple Crowns and Grand Slams forever.
Is this really what you want?
Both nations missed a great opportunity to book a game that would have had a lot of interest from around the world.
I understand these games can’t be organised in 5 minutes but they should have found a way to make it happen.
I don’t think Wales are ducking anyone but it’s a bad look haha.
It’s not up to Wales to support Georgian Rugby. That’s up to International Rugby and Georgia. I sympathise with Georgia’s decent attempt to create this fixture. But for Wales the proposed match up is just a potential stick to beat them with and a potential big psychological blow that young Welsh team doesn’t need.
(I’m Irish BTW.)
Sad that this was not confirmed.
When administrators talk about expanding the game they evidently don’t include pathways to the top tier of rugby for teams outside of the old boys club.
Rugby deserves better, and certainly Georgia does.