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BORDEAUX - Ireland have vowed not to make the same mistakes against Georgia here on Saturday that saw them stumble to an unconvincing rugby World Cup win over minnows Namibia last weekend.
Eddie O'Sullivan's men are still reeling from the shock of being held to a meagre 32-17
victory by the part-time Africans and know that Georgia will be a much tougher prospect.
They showed that much in holding Argentina to 6-3 in the first half of their encounter Tuesday before a late surge from the Pumas, who stunned France in their opening pool D match, saw them romp to a 33-3 victory.
"I thought Georgia were very physical and hard to break down, which just proves what a tough group we're in," said flanker David Wallace.
"They held out for a very long time, and will clearly take confidence from (that) performance. They're very physical in all phases of play but they showed they could also play an open game as well.
"Namibia and Georgia have both shown that they have not come here just to lie down. We know we're going to have to work hard in every game.
"It's going to be very intense against Georgia. We will need to be more clinical in our workrate against them and better at the breakdown."
Ireland should still come through this match with the maximum five points and Georgia themselves are not expecting to take anything from it.
Ireland welcome back winger Shane Horgan for the match with the Leinster star replacing Ulster's Andrew Trimble.
Horgan probably would have played against Namibia had he not been recovering from a knee injury suffered while warming up for Ireland's preparatory match against Scotland.
O'Sullivan admitted earlier in the week that he had been tempted to make several changes to the starting 15.
"I could have made a lot of changes to the side but that is not my style," said O'Sullivan.
"I have faith in this team, and with the players who recognised their mistakes and left the pitch frustrated."
Captain Brian O'Driscoll will start despite hyper extending his elbow during the Namibia clash and admitted it had been tough since then.
"They have been (some) difficult days because we were disappointed by our performance. We watched the video on Monday and we understood it just wasn't good enough: we tried a lot of things, it was just the execution was catastrophic," he said.
- AFP
