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Ireland can make amends against Georgia

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Betfair's rugby expert Tony Calvin looks at Brian O'Driscoll's rebuilding exercise against Georgia

WHEN a certain bookmaker handicapped this match on Thursday, with Ireland giving away 37 points, the eyes nearly popped out of my head.

Now, I suppose you could be forgiven for thinking that the value lay with the Georgians. After all, they only lost 33-3 to Argentina, having conceding a last minute try and only going in 6-3 down at the break, while the Irish were woeful in a 32-17 defeat of Namibia.

And, indeed, I immediately rang a few people to say that the handicap was "at least 7-10 points out".

But the massive value lay with the Irish, not the Georgians.

Yes, Ireland have been playing some very poor rugby recently. They were slow and ponderous against Namibia, and that mirrored a lethargy that was so evident in a 31-21 summer loss to Scotland and a highly fortuitous 23-20 defeat of Italy at Ravenhill.

But this Ireland side have not become poor overnight and that Namibia match could have been the wake-up call they desperately needed. And they sent out a statement of intent when picking their best XV for this match, with the only change being first-choice winger Shane Horgan being introduced after proving his fitness.

But what made the -37 so appealing is that the Georgians only played Argentina on Tuesday, and that was one of the most physical games in this tournament to date. You only had to look at some of the Pumas coming off the field to see that, - and those boys give as good as they get, believe me.

And international teams, especially the lesser nations, just can't put in strong back-to-back performances in so short space a time, as Argentina showed against Georgia and as Italy again underlined when struggling to beat Romania 24-18 earlier in the week. Four days rest is not enough.

So I was expecting Georgia to make changes for this game, but not the 11 they announced this morning.

It was small wonder that the Betfair markets have reacted massively, and the Georgians are now 2.02 to back -46.5 and 1.65 on the -52.5 line. They will undoubtedly drift further, as kick-off approaches, so if you fancy them hold fire.

Now admittedly I don't know much about the Georgian second string side, but I'd say that Ireland must be looking for a 50+ margin of victory at the very least here.

Simplistic this may be but, if at the start of the tournament, you asked me how I would handicap a match between Ireland's first XV and Georgia's second XV I'd have to say 65 minimum.

Bet accordingly.