() – The World Cup may have begun 12 days ago, but for Fiji this is day two of the tournament.

The Pacific Island side kicked off their campaign with a game they were always going to win, against Namibia, and followed this up with one they were always going to lose, against South Africa.

But on Sunday at Eden Park the competition begins in earnest for Fiji when they play Samoa in front of 60,000 spectators.

Win that game and then beat Wales the following week and Fiji have booked themselves a quarterfinal clash against Ireland.

Samoa need to win on Sunday and then beat South Africa to have any hope of making the last eight.

Some chance, but Fiji captain Deacon Manu says his team’s chances of making it out of Pool D remain realistic.

“South Africa will finish top of the pool without a doubt,” Manu said before the team’s training run at Mt Smart Stadium yesterday.

“They’ve got two more games to go [against Namibia and Samoa] but they are going to be tough to beat, so that second spot is still up for grabs.

“Samoa this week have come off a loss [to Wales] and we’re going to be playing at a full stadium at Eden Park and that’s all the motivation we need to push for that second spot.”

The Fiji team spent a couple of days licking their wounds after the 49-3 drubbing they received from the Springboks on Sunday and it was only yesterday that they hit the training paddock again.
“We’ve had a couple of days off and away from rugby and we’ve put things into perspective,” said Manu.

“We played a South African side that probably played its best game of the year.

“We’ve looked at what we needed to improve on, we ran ourselves ragged over that first 30-40 minutes, trying to increase the tempo and pace of the game.”

Manu added that they’ve kept a few things up their sleeve for their two big games coming up.

“We’ve got things that we haven’t introduced,” he said.

“We have been targeting these two games, it was a disappointing result against South Africa but that’s the high standards we set for ourselves.

“We’re making sure we get back on track, we’ve got an important training week this week in preparation for Sunday’s game.”

Share This

About the author