Here’s a glance at three internationals played across Europe on the same day. The three games: Ireland v Australia, Italy v Japan and Scotland v Fiji. While the big hitters, England and New Zealand, were meeting in London, six other nations had other pressing matters to attend to. WXV is doing a power of good
The first-day results: Colombia 13 Fiji 67; Ireland 109 Kazakhstan 0 These runaway victories simply had to be expected. We have seen similar margins at many a World Cup of the past, and they involved far fewer nations than the eighteen contesting this brand-new WXV. The disparities were shown most clearly in that second game.
World Cup – Round Three The Fijians have captured the hearts of all rugby-lovers by their approach to the game. But the pool-draw did them no favours, bringing them up against world-ranked teams 1 and 4. They managed three splendid tries against England a fortnight ago, then beat fellow hopefuls the Boks, only to run
England v Fiji By the purest of flukes the first day of competition saw the red-hot favourites drawn against the rank outsiders. Normally, when top (ranked 1) meets bottom (ranked 21), you steel yourself for one-way traffic. It did come, but only after Fijiana showed how much they deserved to be appearing at this level.
A Fijiana Drua team will join the Buildcorp Super W Competition in Australia, replacing last year’s President’s XV as the sixth side. This is good news for Fiji, offering players more exposure to international competition before they go to the World Cup . The squad of 30 contains eight who are resident abroad in Australia,
Fiji became the ninth women’s team to confirm their place at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games after reaching the final of the Oceania Rugby Sevens Championship, while Australia’s men will join their women’s team in Japan after also getting the job done at the ANZ Stadium in Suva, Fiji. Fiji’s qualification route was a lot
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