Fly, soar, play Fijian rugby

Opinions / Analysis

WE love to fly like on every try scored, for we are Flying Fijians.

And we may have just replicated Jo Levula, the original Flying Fijian, to kick and end the game.

Yes, we do it because we can.

But if our knee jerk start against Georgia was in the grand scheme of things then moving forward we have a problem.

And we need to fix it.

The Georgia performances wasn’t impressive but the 17-12 win is a win and we’ll take it.

“We didn’t execute the game plan in the first half, we did come from behind to win, we have a lot of work ahead of us before the Portugal game,” coach Simon Raiwalui said.

Back foot

Fiji was anxious in Bordeaux, messing up restarts, losing lineouts, giving away penalties and paying the habitual price for their high-risk passing attack and repeatedly dropping the ball.

Fijians have been the show, for a Tier 2 team, they have been the talk but let’s walk the talk and step up against Portugal in the all important match.

“We didn’t get the momentum going to many turnovers, Georgia played great rugby, with Portugal we still have more rugby to play”, said Raiwalui.

Equation

The equation is, Fiji needs a win only, Wallabies needs to win with bonus point and hope Fiji lose,
Portugal with 2 bonus point wins and could qualify while Wales are in pole position.

Should Australia fail to pick up a bonus-point victory over Portugal, that will be enough for Fiji, but more than likely they will need to claim something from their final pool game against Os Lobos.

Impressive Georgia

Georgia were hugely impressive, forcing their opponents into a number of handling errors, but the Flying Fijians’ greater quality eventually told.

Simon Raiwalui’s men calmed themselves down in the second period, stopped dropping the ball so much and went over twice through Waisea Nayacalevu and Vinaya Habosi.

Raiwalui was composed during the post game interview, admitting the team was on a back foot in the first half, gave away possession, didn’t execute the game plan but at the changeover stepped in and stepped to win the game.

“We didn’t get the momentum going to many turnovers, rectified at the break to win the game”.

No miracle

Raiwalui shrugged off suggestions that the Georgia win was a miracle.

“No miracle, it’s either you win or lose, it wasn’t a tidy game but we managed to come out with a win.”

Game at a time

The Fijians are not looking too far ahead to the quarters as Raiwalui has it, one game at a time and Portugal is up next.

“We have a look at area that needed special focus, we will work on it and get back to playing rugby.”

Fly, Flying Fijians but keep your feet on the ground, and let your performance soar as high as it will.