Yesterday’s 17-52 defeat at the hands of Ireland was a bitter pill to swallow for the Flying Fijians in our final Autumn Nations Series test, at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Ireland. It was tough!
The Irish scored clear tries. They were well thought out, planned and orchestrated. And it looked like a stroll in the park for them.
They controlled the set pieces, and their attacks were strategic.
If there is a lesson here, like it should, then it would have to be the fact that we need to be playing more so called Tier 1 nations, consistently, annually.
National skipper Waisea Nayacalevu said it was a clash of discipline, possession and fierce pursuit as the two teams tried to capitalise over the other.
“It was quite frustrating for me to be honest, like coach (Mick Byrne) said because we gave out a lot of penalties and (were) back footing most of the time and probably in our defence as well, and our connection and our communication was not really up,” Nayacalevu said.
He believes we must avoid that if we are to defeat top teams like Ireland.
Ireland scored eight tries, by Calen Dorris, Josh van der Flier, Craig Casey, Bundee Aki, Gus McCarthy, Ronan Kellher and Mack Hansen scoring a brace, in the 41st and 67th minute of play.
Fiji managed a penalty by fly-half Caleb Muntz in the 17th minute and two tries, by forwards Kitione Salawa and Setareki Turagacoke in the 54th and 65th minute of play.
Eroni Mawi and Turagacoke copped yellow cards in the 18th and 66th minute.
Despite the loss, the national side concludes an eventful year of test matches with top appearances against several Tier 1 nations and a successful outing at the Pacific Nations Cup.
Again, we say attention must now focus on attracting more Tier 1 nations.
We must be prepared to raise our standards.
The loss to Ireland shows us where we stand right now. It offers us an opportunity to gauge what we must do to raise our game and improve our ranking on the World Rugby table.
Watch a replay of the test and see how the Irish scored their tries. Watch how they manipulated our defensive shape, and how they played the numbers game to perfection. Watch how they off-set our defence and condensed our numbers seemingly at will, opening up space out wide to work their magic.
The loss may have been frustrating. The best we can do now is to focus on improving our game. We have our work cut out. We lost to Scotland, defeated Wales and Spain before yesterday’s loss. To beat the best, we must improve to their standards, and be consistent. That comes with a lot of hard work! We say go Fiji, go!
