With just six days left until the Rugby World Cup begins, excitement and anticipation levels are reaching an all-time high. Judging by the confusion and overall uncertainty of what is going to happen, and what is looking like the tightest competition between so many contenders, this could be the biggest and best tournament of all.
When you look through all the different groups and you see teams like South Africa and Scotland in pool B, and France and Ireland in pool C pitted against each other, you can’t help but feel that excitement and anticipation that naturally evolves and grows within ourselves when we take a glance at these fixtures. There is at least one pool that catches the eye every so often at the Rugby World Cup. You look through World Cup archives and see groups like pool C containing Australia, Wales, Samoa and Argentina from the 1991 World Cup. Look at the 2003 World Cup in Australia; you had pool C filled with the likes of England, South Africa, Samoa, Georgia and debutants Uruguay. How about pool D of the 2007 tournament which had hosts France bunched in with Argentina, Ireland, Georgia and Namibia. The majority of these fixtures were hotly contested as you rarely saw a team racking up a convincing score line against the other. There was even a few occasions where an upset or shock result was very much on the cards. Ireland scrapping over the line against Georgia in 2007 with a result of 14-10 is a classic example this. But its pool A that seems to be wetting the appetite more than most for everyone.
In pool A, you have three of the top 5 ranked teams on the rugby board in Australia, England and Wales. Having just these three going hammer and tongs would be enough for many, but when you see Fiji thrown into the mix, it forces you to sit up and take notice. Also in the group are Uruguay, who will be making only their second appearance at the Rugby World Cup and Fiji. And it’s the addition of Fiji that I can’t seem to discard the thoughts running through my mind of what they could achieve at this tournament. In the past, Fiji has shown glimpses of what they’re capable of. Looking back at the 2007 World Cup in France, an underdog Fijian side beat Wales in the final game of pool B to decide who would go to the Quarter Finals with Australia. In the Quarter Final they met eventual winners South Africa and almost created one of the biggest World Cup upsets of all time. With only fifteen minutes to go in the match, Fiji were level pegging with the Springboks 20-20 and had come within a fraction of taking the lead on a number of occasions.
One particular area that Fiji is notoriously strong is their back play. In the past, Fiji has produced some of the most exciting, athletic and fearless back line players we have ever seen. Players like Rupeni Caucaunibuca, Vilimoni Delasau and arguably the greatest of them all, Waisale Serevi. As for the next generation, who are the ones to watch over the next few months? Keep your eyes on Josh Matavesi, Vereniki Goneva and especially Nemani Nadolo, who has become a real cult hero for the Canterbury Crusaders in New Zealand over the past two years. These guys have the ability to win a match on their own and will be sending nervous shivers down the spine of everyone involved in the England, Wales and Australia camps.
As with every team, nothing is perfect and every side has weaknesses. With Fiji, their weakness lies in the forward pack. You could say they have that natural ability with ball in hand and have very skilful players like Leone Nakarawa and Captain Akapusi Qera, but like many of the two tier nations, their frailties become highlighted when the set pieces of scrum and lineout come into play. Maybe this is the time that Fiji changes the record, and who knows, they might be keeping something under wraps when they take on the more technically superior sides at the World Cup. If they can find more ways of utilizing their strengths to the fullest, and that means having a solid platform at the set piece, then who knows what Fiji can achieve, and seeing a though they are the first team to arrive in England this week and their captain declaring “We are so blessed to be here, but we are not here to make up the numbers, we are here to perform”, they mean business.
