James Botham, the grandson of England cricket legend Ian Botham, enjoyed a winning debut for Wales as they defeated Georgia 18-0 in the Autumn Nations Cup but it was another player making his first start who stole the show.
Teenage winger Louis Rees-Zammit scored a maiden try as the youthful Wales side ended a six-game losing streak on Saturday.
Rees-Zammit also set up a try for replacement scrumhalf Rhys Webb while flyhalf Callum Sheedy scored his first points in a Wales jersey with a conversion and two penalties as the home side laboured to a victory that will ease the pressure on coach Wayne Pivac.
Wales remained third in Group A, five points behind leaders England, who they host next Saturday, as they handed debuts not just to flanker Botham, grandson of former England cricketer Ian, but also scrumhalf Kieran Hardy, centre Johnny Williams and teenage flyhalf Ioan Lloyd.
Georgia showed improvement from their 40-0 drubbing by England last time out, but were surprisingly outmuscled in the scrum and have now scored only seven points in their last three tests.
Sheedy’s early penalty put Wales in front after nine minutes as they spent much of the first quarter inside the Georgia half.
Repeated infringements in their own 22 might have seen the visitors reduced to 14 players, but Welsh referee Luke Pearce showed admirable patience.
When Wales did speed up the play, Sheedy launched the ball out to Rees-Zammit in space on the left wing and he crossed in the corner.
That seemed to spur Georgia on and they were the stronger side in the final 10 minutes of the half.
The visitors turned down two kickable penalties in favour of attacking line-outs that were well defended by Wales, and when Tedo Abzhandadze did go for the posts on the stroke of halftime he missed.
The start of the second period followed the same pattern, with Wales camped in the Georgia half, but failing to covert that dominance into points until Sheedy added a second penalty.
Visiting loose forward Beka Saginadze was fortunate to receive only a yellow card when his swinging arm caught Wales captain Justin Tipuric in the face.
Wales did cross for a second try with five minutes remaining, Rees-Zammit spotting the run of Webb inside him and his pass enabled the scrumhalf to canter over the line.
