Fly-half Teti Tela says lapses in concentration and handling errors cost them their Rugby World Cup match against Wales earlier this week.
Wales won 32-26 after Fiji made a strong comeback in the last 10 minutes of the match.
Tela, who made his RWC debut and first start at 10 in the past six Test matches, had an average game against the Dragons — kicking wide of the posts at his first opportunity and failing to find the touch line on a number of occasions.
First choice fly-half Caleb Muntz was ruled out of the RWC because of injury just days from the Wales game.
Tela said while the whole team was still hurting from that loss, they needed to pick themselves up and move on to the next game against the Wallabies on Monday in St Entienne.
He said he was proud of how the players kept fighting on when they were 14-32 down in the final quarter of match.
“We knew we were gonna have to work hard to beat the Welsh and we probably left a little bit out there on the field and gave them the opportunity through lack of discipline and a few handling errors which sort of keep them in the game,” said the 32-year-old Tela.
“We gave ourselves in another opportunity at the end to win the game potentially. I’m proud of the boys for their efforts and thank them for instilling their trust in me throughout the week. “We’ll take our learnings directly from this.
“There’s a lot of boys that are hurting in there.
“Against the Wallabies, we will be ready. We have our training tomorrow (Tuesday) that pretty much starts our week.
“We can’t be looking over our shoulders too much because we know it’s the Rugby World Cup, we need to walk up and we’ve got to put those points on the board.”
