Australia vs Fiji

[TRF_Olyy]

Anyone else been watching this?

Aus 42 - 3 Fiji, with 4minutes to go

The scoreline flatters Australia though. They have played well, but not remarkably so. Fiji have played admirably, strong in defence, and strong in attack, though they often bunch in too much letting the Aussie wingers just run in easy tries

That 112kg centre that people were talking about (Caucau?) injured AAC (tackled him and crumpled his ankle) so that must be a worry for Australia, though is a relief to England fans

Quade Coopers been doing well, just a solid performance, nothing special
Elsom hurdled completely over a tackler, it was quality, but he hurdled straight into another which was deemed dangerous so Fiji got a penalty, but it would've been a helluva try if the 2nd man wasn't there

 

[nickdnz]

The Fijian 9 and 10 were useless. Had it been Nicky Little and Mosese Rauluni I'd have expected a much better result for Fiji. Caucau played all right, however never really got any space and seemed a little out of his depth. I think if he trains well, he could be a weapon for the RWC, but he really has to get fitter and faster. I respectfully disagree with you Olyy, Fiji were good defensively, however I thought that offensively, they were very poor. Not like the Fiji who played Wales and South Africa in the RWC. That being said, this is an under strength squad. I thought Bobo played well.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

I think it might have just been because their players have alot of physical strength that i thought they were strong in attack, they were regularly hitting the line and getting a few metres, but i suppose if you can't convert that into points it's useless

 

[Haysie]

A weird match! Just seemed like all sorts of odd things were occuring! The scoreline was 7-3 to Australia with roughly 30 mins on the clock, so you can see that Fiji only lost it for themselves. Ill discipline cost dearly, and Australia's last-ditch defence was superb.
It showed when Fiji held onto the ball and stopped throwing 50/50 offloads, as they ran a streak of 14 phases.

Bit of a dry run for next week against England I think

 

[veux]

Considering there were only 12 caps between the Fiji team and playing against the 3rd best team in the world, I think they played well. And they also injured Ben Alexander which should be good for England.

 

[veux]

How many shoulder charges can you do btw before being sent off - I'm sure I've seen players carded after some of those tackles.

 

[nickdnz]

Two fijian players have been cited.

 

[ranger]

The Fijian 9 and 10 were useless. Had it been Nicky Little and Mosese Rauluni I'd have expected a much better result for Fiji. Caucau played all right, however never really got any space and seemed a little out of his depth. I think if he trains well, he could be a weapon for the RWC, but he really has to get fitter and faster. I respectfully disagree with you Olyy, Fiji were good defensively, however I thought that offensively, they were very poor. Not like the Fiji who played Wales and South Africa in the RWC. That being said, this is an under strength squad. I thought Bobo played well.

The three island teams never have full strength sides outside of the World Cup. I see it as one of the biggest problems with international rugby. If Samoa, Tonga and Fiji had full strength sides for every match they played i could see them overtaking the likes of Wales and England in the rankings.

This match has shown to me that the fijians have better depth than usual. When they get their top team in and manage to lure Isa Nacewa over to play 1st 5 they could challenge a quarter finals or even semis spot next year

 

[Muzzy]

Fiji's best number 10 right now is Seremaia Bai but he's over in France, and the original halfback they wanted to start the game wasn't allowed into the country.

this is either a good sign for Fiji or a bad sign for Australia, this was far from Fiji's best team yet the score was 7-3 until Fiji let aussie score a try seconds before half time, then just after half time fiji were on attack a few metres from the aus try line when they dropped the ball and a bunch of odd crap happened, nobody wanted to pick up the ball until aussie finally did and scored a try they never should have scored. then Fiji had two yellow cards against them in the 2nd half, Fiji could barely win their own lineout ball, sometimes fiji didn't even jump for their own lineout sometimes the hooker threw it to australias side lol, australia had nearly 70% possesion i think, had all the territory so they should have had way more points to show for it but they didn't. so idk if this is a bad sign for australia or a good sign for fiji's defence.

i was worried when i saw caucau was being played at 13 because he's not a good tackler he can be quite reckless at times. i was impressed with the number 12 Radidi though and the fullback Dan Rawaqa has really improved since i last saw him. i was surprised by Fiji's scrum as well i thought they'd get wasted in the scrums as usual but they didn't. this could have been a good game if it was fiji's best team

 

[tomo84]

yeh muzzy, they probably would have gotten wasted in the scrums had australia had their top tier front row and James horwill, cliffy and higgers. Richard brown shouldn't be playing wallabies but I think there's a lot of potential talent in saia faingaa. I think it was a usual Aussie warm up test. mediocre and error ridden but they managed to get a good grip on themselves in the last half hour. digby ioane had A blinder and I think rob Horne could be a potential star. 6.5/10 boys