The Wallabies ran out 16-10 winners over Argentina in Brisbane to answer their critics following an opening defeat to South Africa and now have to get ready for two games against New Zealand.
The Fijians, meanwhile, will meet Canada and Samoa over the next two weeks after they were beaten 34-21 by World Cup hosts Japan in Tokyo. That defeat came a week after they were beaten by the New Zealand Maori in Rotorua.
Fiji coach John McKee said his boys were taught a lesson in their first round clash in the World Rugby Pacific Nations Cup. They trailed by 15 points at half time and then tried to play catch-up rugby.
“Once we were behind, and chasing in the game, we lacked composure to build pressure. We also tried to force the play too much, which resulted in turnovers,” said McKee.
“We’re going to have to take some very quick learnings from this game. We travelled with high hopes, although at the same time expected a tough game from a very good Japanese team. In defence, we made some critical mistakes, little system errors where players either didn’t understand their role properly or didn’t execute their role as they should have.
“We made some good breaks, but we weren’t able to build pressure as we forced a last pass or offload. Now we are looking forward to getting back home and getting a win on home soil for our fans.”
Even though they were beaten, the Fijians certainly impressed double World Cup winner John Eales. The Aussie great was in Tokyo to see the game and advised the other teams in their group not to take them lightly.
“Fiji is going to be a super hard game at the World Cup,” said Eales. “One of the reasons why Fiji and some of the island teams are so much better at a World Cup is because their best players are playing together and training together for a consistent period of time.
“In the past you could have been sure that your scrum would be better, your line-out would be more efficient, you know they are a hell of a hard team to defend but they tended to be more individuals doing great things.
“Now, what we are seeing with Fiji, is they are playing great team structures with the individual flair on top of that. They will be a really big challenge.”
