Canada continued to exert pressure on Georgia and their tiring defence finally gave way as centre Michael Scholtz used his pace to evade the despairing tackles after a high speed break from wing Jordan Wilson-Ross.
Hirayama converted to take his personal haul from the game to 14 points. Canada can now look forward to Division B final against Italy, while Georgia face USA in the third place playoff at 18:00 local time at Upritchard Park, Bangor on Friday.
QUOTES
Canada coach Gary Johnston: “This is the best game we have played, so I am very happy. We came here hoping to be involved in the final against either Tonga or Italy. We knew that the Georgians would play a physical game, but we also knew that we could stand up to them and use our own physicality to knock them over.
"Italy look like a class team, but we believe we can beat them. We hope that the game will go ahead at Ravenhill as I feel that the boys have earned the right to play in front of a big crowd at the best ground in the country.”
Canada captain Nathan Hirayama: “It feels good to be in the final, I can’t wait for Friday now. We expected the game to be very physical. We watched videos of them before the game and knew what to expect. We are looking forward to playing Italy. We have heard that they are a very good side, so it should be a good match.”
Georgia assistant coach Zurab Amonashvili: “Our team could not do enough to win today. We did not have enough power and were tired after so many games in a short time. Today’s match was good, but we are disappointed and we will prove in our next game that we can take third place.”
Georgia captain Archil Kobauri: “We wanted to make the final of course, but losing against Zimbabwe was not good and we were happy to perform so well against Russia. The start of the game was good, but we couldn’t score tries. We wanted to be in the final of Division B, but we will look to get third place now.
"Canada were very strong, but our defence was excellent, it was only it the last five minutes that they broke through our defence. I want to wish Canada all the best for the final.”