Milton Haig: 'Yellow card cost Georgia in heavy defeat'

Georgia head coach Milton Haig has put his side's heavy Rugby World Cup defeat at the hands of Argentina down to the yellow card shown to Mamuka Gorgodze.

The Lelos had their influential skipper sent to the sin bin four minutes into the second half, allowing their opponents to cross over three times during that period.

Having trailed by just five points heading into the interval, Georgia went on to lose 54-9 at the Kingsholm Stadium in Gloucester.

Speaking to reporters after the game, Haig said: "He's our leader, we'd miss him at any stage. We had a bit of a sniff today at half time, we were in the game, but losing Mamuka for that 10 minutes cost us.

"But that's rugby. One week we're winning and we celebrate, and the next week we get beaten badly. We'll have to go back and reassess and look forward to the next match against New Zealand. But we're still on track to achieve our goal of qualifying automatically for RWC 2019."

Georgia won their opening Pool C fixture 17-10 against Tonga last week.