Having earlier disposed of Korea 33-10 in the preliminary round, Luke Treharne’s side entered the knock-out stages in a confident frame of mind.
Wales stunned the crowd when Morgan Williams, whose pace and footwork troubled Fiji throughout, powered his way over the try-line despite being swallowed up by defenders to give his side a shock 5-0 lead.
But Fiji were stung into action and from the kick-off Kaminieli Rasaku burst clear to level the scores. Fiji’s ability to keep the ball alive under duress from tacklers ensured they played at a high tempo.
Joseva Talacolo increased their lead but Wales sensed an opportunity to get back in the game before the break when Joseva Talacolo received a yellow card but despite being down a man, Fiji broke clear for Viwa Naduvalo to waltz over and give Fiji a 17-5 lead at halftime.
Wales dug in bravely in the second spell but Fiji’s skill, power and pace saw them construct two more tries for a 29-5 victory.
Wales will now drop down to the Challenge quarter-finals where they will face USA tomorrow.
Earlier in Wales’ opening game, Treharne gave a master class in game management to guide his side to a comfortable and professional victory.
The Wales captain opened the scoring with a well taken try and completed the scoring after running a superb line in support of Williams.
Tom Brown and Morgan Sieniawski also crossed for tries in the first half for a 21-0 lead at halftime.
Callum Carson had an eventual game, being yellow carded before coming back on to score before Treharne put the icing on the cake with his second try of the game.
“We knew that was going to be a tough game against South Korea,” said Treharne. “The footage we managed to find of Korea from the Asian Series, they just play real high-tempo rugby, width to width and they’ve got some great ball carriers. “So we knew they were going to come hard in the first seven minutes. Luckily, we got the first couple of punches in and were able to finish it off at the end.
“Being such a big tournament, things like nerves, the atmosphere, the occasion could have got to us in that first game so I’m really glad we came through it. We put some nice attacking phases together and then in D we felt pretty strong.”
