Rugby World Cup Upset. Fiji Still in with a Chance!

It's a funny thing rugby union, what was meant to be easy points for the Fijians against Uruguay turned out to be the complete opposite and a fantasy come true for all Uruguay fans. These are the types of fairy tales that rugby fans dream about - their team beating one of the Goliaths of the Rugby World Cup. Only three days ago it was the Fijian community who were on the edge of their seat and praying for an upset against the Wallabies, and while it didn't go Fiji's way it was a pleasing effort which identified Fiji as legitimate contestants for the Rugby World Cup quarter finals.

And for every team that gets their fairy tale ending there's another team licking their wounds, re-evaluating, re-grouping and re-focusing. During the last Rugby World Cup it was the Springboks who lost in that historical test to Japan. The Springboks, however, continued through to the semi finals and lost to eventual tournament champs the All Blacks by 2 points. For Fiji they can only learn from this experience and focus on their remaining pool games against Georgia and Wales over the next couple of weeks.

As a Fijian supporter the game was difficult to watch, in fact at times it was painful and downright ugly. Fiji were a mere shadow of themselves when they played the Wallabies last Sunday. The game against the Wallabies only started to slip away in the last 20 minutes as the Wallabies shifted to another gear. But Fiji were the dominant side for most of the match and gave the Aussies plenty to think about, and plenty of sore bodies the next few days. This time things were very different.

Coach John McKee made wholesale changes to his starting side to face Uruguay, with only 3 players named in the starting 15 who had started against the Wallabies. Playing an "easier" side provides an opportunity for other players to  get valuable game time and you would think Fiji has the player depth to be able to produce similar results only a few days earlier. Unfortunately, it was like watching a train wreck slowly unravel. Risky passes and poor handling errors has almost shifted the Flying Fijians brand from flamboyant to elementary in a single game.

The players weren't disillusioned by their performance either as stated by Fiji's No.8 Leone Nakarawa following the match. "We made a lot of mistakes and a lot of errors and they kept capitalising on that. We have to go back and improve on our basics and individual skill and come back in eight days’ time when we play Georgia.”

Two stats sum up Fiji's game: 1. Fiji turned the ball over a whopping 27 times compared with Uruguay's 15, Fiji converted only 1 from 5 conversion attempts giving away a potential 8 points, while in comparison Uruguay converted all 3 tries and nailed an additional 3 penalty goals for an extra 9 points. It leaves a bitter taste in the mouths of Fijian fans knowing their side scored 5 tries to Uruguay's 3 on the day. To rub salt into the wound, Fiji's other stats were quite impressive, so apart from the above crucial areas Fiji dominated Uruguay in every other aspect. Based on the stats the game seemed almost too easy for the Fijian's who took their foot off the gas only to realise all too late that it was about to go south.

Nakarawa added further comments about their late attempts to claw the game back, "We came back but it was too late. Even though we were down, we kept believing in ourselves that we can still win. We came up short but it was a good effort from the boys, who still sticked together. For me, Fiji coming here is more than the World Cup."

Coach John McKee was visibly disappointed following Fiji's loss to Uruguay but remains focused on the future. "We made some errors and they scored three tries off our errors basically - we hadn't been playing well. We needed to focus on not turning the ball over - in the first half we turned over the ball around the edges too often, but we believed we could find our way back into the game. We have to get ourselves off the floor now and up for Georgia game in eight days - that's now a massively important game for us."

On being asked about the issues around their inability to convert tries on the day, "Yes, today our goal-kicking was a factor in the game. We only kicked one goal, and with such a narrow margin in the score-line, the goal-kicking would have made a difference. However, there was a lot of other things we could have done well in the game, so you can’t narrow it down to one thing."

Despite the loss, the Fijians can still make the quarter finals, and once they're there any team can progress through to the semis. Funnily enough Fiji managed to earn themselves 2 bonus points for scoring 4 or more tries and losing within a margin of 7 so there were at least some points taken from this loss.

Fiji play their next match against Georgia on Thursday 3rd October at 3.15pm AEST time.