A year later in 2008, he played in the inaugural Junior World Rugby Trophy as a versatile front rower, starting at either hooker or prop.

Soon after Junior World Rugby Trophy, Kakovin won his first cap for Georgia before his 19th birthday against Scotland A in November 2008, and holds the record for youngest ever Georgian prop on debut, and is one of just seven other front rowers to be capped as 18-year-olds although his early call up was mainly due to the unavailability of a large number of players in his position.

He carried his good form into the Top 14, and in his first match back from the World Cup, he notably destroyed the most capped French prop of all time Sylvain Marconnet, as Brive routed Biarritz 32–7 at home.

As well as with Georgia, Kakovin went past Khinchagishvili as Brive's first choice prop, and later he was named in the Midi Olympique team of the first half of the season, the newspaper described him as a "little bull" who was "very mobile, dynamic with ball in hand, and also excels at the scrum area".

His success meant that several much bigger teams than Brive were hunting his signature, in the end the four times European Champions Toulouse beat off competition from Clermont, Toulon and Racing-Métro, and signed him to replace the retiring South African international Daan Human at the club.