Olympian Jiuta Wainiqolo made his return to the national side went unnoticed with 130m in nine carries and made 12 tackles.
He made a backhanded off-load straight from a rugby 7s playbook to set up replacement halfback Simione Kuruvoli’s try.
Even though the Flying Fijians lost to host Ireland 17-35 yesterday, their performance stood out, UK media reported. Fullback Setariki Tuicuvu made three offloads, break four tackles while hooker Sam Matavesi recorded 20 tackles — top performer of the game, backed up by flanker Levani Botia, who made some crucial turnovers (16) and No.8 Viliame Mata (15).
The statistics of the Fijians and the performance of the Ireland players frustrates head coach Andy Farrell, who, in a television interview immediately after the game, said his side’s performance as “awful”, despite scoring five tries.
“I thought we were awful, I thought we were poor, we didn’t have much continuity. We’ll sit down now and understand the reasons why,” Farrell said after his side secured their 11th consecutive home win “Fair play to Fiji, going down to 13 men, they were resilient but the amount of chances that didn’t convert into points was pretty disappointing for us,” he continued before looking to visibly calm himself and congratulate the three Ireland debutants.
“Munster fly-half Jack Crowley, who had more of a baptism of fire than predicted, coming on in the 45h minute after Joey Carbery failed his head injury assessment following a high tackle from Fiji’s Gloucester back-rower Albert Tuisue.
“But for Fiji, being down to 13 men, obviously with the red card and a couple of yellow cards, and the penalty count being 14-10 in our favour, we should have been a lot more clinical than we were.”
