Equation is simple now for Fijian bid

By PAUL REES

PREVIEW…

Australia v Fiji

Sunday September 17. Kick-off 4.30pm, Stade Geoffroy-Guichard, Saint-Etienne

THE World Cup has turned into a knockout tournament for Fiji after last weekend's heartache in Bordeaux when they fell tantalisingly short against Wales.

They have to defeat Australia in Saint-Etienne today to remain in contention for a place in the last eight and after all the social media chatter in the week about how officiating decisions went against the islanders against Wales, Fiji want to take the referee and his assistants out of the picture.

“If we sharpen up on our completion when we enter the 22 and score a couple of the tries we failed to against Wales, the referee does not become an issue,” said Fiji forwards coach Brad Harris.

“We have focused on tidying up our performance, making sure that we are disciplined when we do not have the ball, get our tackle height right and make good decisions at the offensive breakdown. If we paint the right pictures, we can apply pressure and come out on top.”

The referee is, ironically, Welsh. Andrew Brace was born in Cardiff, but moved to Ireland where he worked as a community officer for Munster. He is not known for having a high tolerance threshold, but what today needs is even-handedness.

“The nature of the game is that referees make their calls,” said Fiji's defence coach, Daryl Gibson. “We cannot control that. What we can do is become more clinical every time we approach the tryline.

“I thought we should probably have been rewarded for our pressure a little bit earlier when we were pressing their line and coming away with penalties. We came close to winning but we lacked the clinical killer instinct to score points when we had the chance.”

Fiji have made four personnel changes from the side that lost to Wales and moved Semi Radradra, whose failure to collect a pass on the bounce cost

Radradra played on the wing in the 2019 World Cup against Australia and his shift makes room for the bruising Josua Tuisova who will be charged with running at Australia's outside-half Carter Gordon.

Wing Juita Wainiqolo and scrum-half Simone Kuruvoli are the other changes behind. At forward, La Rochelle's Levani Botia replaces Albert Tuisue in the back row.

Six of the line-up started against the Wallabies four years ago. Australia's three survivors are all backs, Nic White, Samu Kerevi and Marika Koroibete. Prop James Slipper, who was on the bench in Sapporo, starts at tight-head prop with Taniela Tupou injured. They have seven Fijians in their 23.

Tupou was a leading figure in the Wallabies' opening round victory over Georgia when they established superiority up front and surprised their opponents with their physical approach at forward.

“They are very aggressive on the gainline with their carries and cleanouts and they have strike weapons across the field,” said Fiji's head coach, Simon Raiwalui, who was coached by his Australian opposite number Eddie Jones when he played for Saracens.

“Eddie will have them firing. I know from experience that he is one of the best technical coaches in the world and he will come up with a plan for us. We will need to be at our best and hold on to the ball in contact better than we did against Wales.”

Jones's five-match losing streak since taking charge of Australia for the second time ended with the victory over Georgia and he is someone who knows what it takes to excel in World Cups.

Victory will all but guarantee them a place in the quarter-finals and leave the outcome of their match against Wales next weekend to determine whether they top the group of finish second – put another way, whether they face his former charges England or Argentina.

“Fiji is the most important match of our World Cup campaign,” said Jones, who picked his captain Will Skelton expecting him to recover from a calf strain. “They provide you with a different test because they are brilliant on the counter-attack and they match pace with precision.

“The game is evolving into 30 seconds of absolute power and two minutes of soccer-like transition. So you need big people and those who can play quickly. It is fascinating where the game will go next, but I think this World Cup will be decided by who can win those power contests.

“How you prepare players for almost two different games is intriguing. The way the game is at the moment, with the average break in play more than twice as long as the average ball in play, you encourage a power contest. We need more continuous play.”