Fiji Rugby

Fiji, as a country has been having political and sporting difficulties for nearly 3 years now. It all started with the December 2006 coup in which the fiji military ousted the Democratically elected government because of certain government policies, including the early release from prison of people implicated in the 2000 Coup and the government's promotion of controversial legislation to establish a Commission with the power to grant amnesty to perpetrators of the coup.

After the 2006 coup, fiji were hit with multitudes of bans and restrictions by international organisations and countries as they didn't agree with the coup regardless of the reasons behind it. The most affected by the coup were the normal people and sporting organisations. On 1st September 2009, Fiji were suspended from the Commonwealth after failing to meet a Commonwealth deadline for setting national elections by 2010. This affected the fiji sporting teams the most as they could no longer be part of the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, India. Fiji have won 14 medals at the Commonwealth games since joining in 1938 and 3 of the medals they won was in Rugby 7's, a sport fiji has excelled in since 1976.

Fiji is ranked as a Top 10 rugby playing nations in the world in the 15's version of the game and they re-wrote history in 2007 when they beat Wales in pool play to make the quarter-finals of a Rugby World Cup for only the second time in its 20 year history and gave the eventual winners, South Africa a run for their money. Recently, the Fiji Rugby union has faced many problems relating to the selection of teams, the job of the coaches and the discipline of the players and management.

In the 2009 Pacific Nations Cup, fiji were placed second but a few weeks later, the fiji coach Ilivasi Tabua, the man who took fiji to the quarter finals in the 2007 RWC was sacked after an off-field incident during the Pacific Nations Cup. The Fiji Rugby Union then appointed 3 coaches to take fiji to the end of year tour to Europe. The trio were former australian great, Glen Ella; former all black Mike Brewer and a former waratah lock, Sam Domoni with the latter chosen as the head coach designate. Sam Domoni also demanded the players not to perform the "cibi" (Fiji's version of the Haka) which fiji has performed in all matches in its 70 year history. Domoni who is also a pastor described the war-chant as a relic of the islands pre-christian past.

Fiji had 3 match on tour but were without the services of a few of their top players such as winger Vilimoni Delasau who had flight problems,  centre Kameli Ratuvou who pulled out to concentrate on his club games and flanker Netani Talei who was injured. A few top fiji players were never approached by Mike Brewer whose job was to make sure all fiji's top players were available for all of fiji matches. The likes of Sisa Koyamaibole, Marika Vakacegu, Timoci Nagusa, Isa Nacewa were not selected. Fiji played well in the first half in their first game against Scotland but lost 23-10 due to a simple errors and poor defence in the 2nd half. They lost a few good players after the game as these players such as dangerous winger, Napolioni Nalaga and prop Deacon Manu returned to their clubs as Brewer didn't go to the IRB to force clubs to release player for the duration of the tour and thus the players were forced to return to their clubs. Ireland played with their top players against fiji and like the previous week, fiji played well in the first half but were decimated in the 2nd half and they lost 41-6. Their final game was against Romania, a team ranked 9 places below fiji.

Fiji lost the services of all their overseas based players except england based Josh Matavesi and Apolosi Satala, who captained the side and france based Gabrieli Lovobalavu, Vereniki Goneva and Norman Ligairi. Ireland based winger, Timoci Nagusa (who wasn't selected for the first match against Scotland but got his first start for fiji in 6 months after being unceremoniously dumped by the then Fiji coach, Ilivasi tabua during the Pacific Nations Cup) on the right wing and former fiji rugby league winger, Semi Tadulala made his debut on the other wing. Fiji's scrummaging was poor throughout the game as fiji based players made the core of the forwards and  the lineouts were poor as well. The romanians took advantage of the fiji's lack of experience in the forwards to lead 11-7 at half time but the fijians who in the previous games slowed down in the 2nd half played brilliantly and tries to Nagusa, Jonetani Ratu and Jimilai Naikadawa and good goal-kicking from stand-in fly-half Josh Matavesi as fiji went on to defeat the romanians by 29-18. The poor performance by fiji in the europe tour was a sign of things to come. The banning of the "cibi", a tradition fiji had followed for over 70 years didn't sit in well with the fijian rugby pundits and fans alike.

Fiji; a country where rugby is religion, has faced many problems in the last few years and hopefully they would rise again from the ashes like the phoenix and repeat their feat in the 2011 Rugby Word Cup in New Zealand....

Scotland 23-10 Fiji

But having said that, it was more clinical than we are used to, wasn’t it? How many times have we seen the scrum-half break (usually Mike Blair) with no-one on his shoulder and the move fizzles out?

This time when Cus went through the gap, pack-attack-captain Beattie was on his shoulder and lo-and-behold, try! While on other days a better (Aussie?) defence might have stopped that one, or the pass for Morrison’s try would have been given as forward.

Scotland don’t usually get the breaks in International rugby so we’ll take them against a team that were ranked higher than us. So far, so good—a win’s a win and all that.

The game and the Scotland team went a little to sleep in the second half though, and there were still signs of the odd silly error or turnover of old. The defence was up to the Fijians attempts to counter on the day. The opposition will be much stiffer next week and I think the intensity and concentration levels will need to go up a bit.

Hopefully the crowd levels will go up a bit too—it’s extremely poor not having some sort of ticket buying facility on the day. It’s not rocket science SRU, it means you can make more money!

Even if Andy Robinson is a fan of big wings, there is a pretty good argument for bringing Thom Evans in for Danielli. Given that pace, confidence and ball skills seemed to serve the Irish backs well against Australia yesterday (easily game of the weekend that one) and Evans has these in spades, the move makes sense.

Alex Grove made a solid debut in the 13 shirt, where he tackled well and made very few mistakes that I saw, along with a couple of nice passes that hinted at what he might offer in attack if the ball got to him more.

To replace him or not if Cairns is fit possibly becomes Robinson’s biggest decision this week. On the other side, the Wallabies have ball skills up the yahoo but there is still a fair amount of inexperience in their backline (Matt Giteau aside), so it’s almost an even contest in terms of experience if Scotland can find any sort of platform with which to take them on.

The improved Wallaby front-row could make the scrum an even contest (or worse) but with Moray Low and Kyle Traynor on form and Euan Murray still to come back at least we’re starting to get some depth on both sides of our props department.

The line-out went well despite the second-rows being generally quiet, but as always with Scottish hookers it could be a different story if their throwing-in is challenged by the opposition (or the ref).

Looking at the level of effort Ireland needed just to get a draw against Australia, it looks like quite a hill to climb for Scotland and Robinson. If we can get close enough to be in it with a few minutes left there’s a chance, but where is the Scottish Brian O’Driscoll who can create a bit of last-minute magic just when you need it most?

Oh, the lunchtime news tells me they’re going to fire the Scotland football coach (where of course it counts as news news, not sport news—which will also be all football). Maybe they should hire an Englishman? It’s working for us so far.