Beka Gorgadze

Beka Gorgadze has done something few professional players do: he described publicly what happened to him in the winter of 2023-24. Heavy club and international demands, repeated travel, sleep that stopped working, and what he called a burn-out between February and March. His club managed his load and rested him, and he finished that season starting and in form.

No 8 at Pau, 1.89m and 110kg, and 30 years old.

Rustavi, an industrial city near Tbilisi, is where he grew up. He played football first and took up rugby at seven, joined the national academy at fifteen, and moved to the Stade Montois academy in 2015. He was a professional at nineteen and a Georgia international in the same year.

Bordeaux-Bègles signed him in 2017 and loaned him straight back for a season he missed entirely through injury. He started three of Georgia’s four matches at the 2019 World Cup, then ruptured a cruciate ligament in 2020-21.

Pau took him in 2021 and made him captain within two seasons. He scored five tries in nineteen matches in 2022-23 and was central to Georgia’s historic win over Wales that November. An ankle injury ended his 2023 World Cup.

He has since used his standing to argue publicly for better facilities at his club, including the state of the pitch at the Stade du Hameau, and became the key forward in a pack that reached the upper places of the Top 14 in 2025-26.

A ball-carrying eight of real physical quality, and one of the most respected Georgian forwards playing in France. What the last three years have shown is that he is also willing to say things about the game that most players in his position keep to themselves.