{"id":307548,"date":"2025-07-31T21:21:13","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T21:21:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/307548\/"},"modified":"2025-07-31T21:21:13","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T21:21:13","slug":"versatile-georgian-international-signs-for-bristol-bears","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/307548\/","title":{"rendered":"Versatile Georgian international signs for Bristol Bears"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Versatile Georgian powerhouse <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/luka-ivanishvili\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Luka Ivanishvili<\/a> has joined <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/bristol\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bristol<\/a> Bears from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/black-lion\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Black Lion<\/a> with immediate effect, ahead of the 2025\/26 season.<\/p>\n<p>Pat Lam has fought off competition from a string of French <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/top-14\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Top 14<\/a> clubs to secure the signature of the 23-cap international, who can operate across the back row.<\/p>\n<p>The 23-year-old played 30 times for Georgian domestic side Black Lion, scoring 11 tries during his four seasons there.<\/p>\n<p>Ivanishvili made his international debut in the 2022 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/rugby-europe-championship\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Rugby Europe Championship<\/a> and represented his country at the 2023 Rugby World Cup. His most recent appearance for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/georgia\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Georgia<\/a> saw him deliver a standout performance against the World Champion Springboks.<\/p>\n<p>Director of Rugby, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/players\/pat-lam\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Pat Lam<\/a>, said: \u201cLuka is a young powerful, all-action back-row forward with huge potential, who will strengthen the depth and competition in our back-row.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe is comfortable wearing six, seven or eight, where he likes to bring physicality, especially in his defence and at the breakdown with his ability to win turnovers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe showed in his performances recently versus <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rugbypass.com\/teams\/south-africa\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">South Africa<\/a> what a talent he is.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe is hungry and determined to continue his development and grow his game, so we\u2019re excited to be welcoming him into our Bears family.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Ivanishvili said: \u201cI\u2019m excited to be joining the Bears and playing in the Gallagher PREM \u2013 one of the best competitions in the world.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAfter speaking to Pat Lam, hearing about the club\u2019s vision and ambitions and seeing the world class facilities, I know this is the perfect place for the next step in my career.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Versatile Georgian powerhouse Luka Ivanishvili has joined Bristol Bears from Black Lion with immediate effect, ahead of the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307549,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4102],"tags":[4151,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-307548","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-rugby","8":"tag-rugby","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114949946497786529","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307548\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}