Flying Fijians head coach Vern Cotter is hopeful of putting up a strong performance in their opening Autumn Nations Cup match against Scotland on Sunday.
The task ahead for Cotter and his brigade won’t be an easy one as Scotland showed their worth up in the North after closely going down to Wallabies 16-15 in their first test match last weekend.
While Scotland will come more settled having a game in the bag, the Flying Fijians are currently trying to work their way out and field a strong team despite a few players returning from club commitments with niggling injuries. Cotter said they had some injuries in the squad.
“Jiuta Wainiqolo is suffering a niggling injury after his club game over the weekend and a few other players carrying minor injuries therefore it’s been a slow start to the week with regards to getting a team and dynamic training in place,” he said.
“The weeks’ camp in France has set the platform and those players who have been in camp since last week have had the right mindset and are focused on the mission this season.
“There is a much better dynamic than it was in July during the Pacific Nations Cup. During PNC, there was a lot of destruction with players coming back to the island and not seeing families and friends for a while.
“We feel there is a bit more focus and concentration with regard to these games obviously we will see on the field.”
Viliame Mata is likely to start at No.8 while Maqala is to debut and Murimurivalu returns at fullback Scotland which sits on nineth position in the World Rugby ranking, will come out with guns blazing against the Flying Fijians at Murrayfield.
“We need to approach the game with a lot of humility. “We are slowly getting together but we want to get learnings from this plus we have the Rugby World Cup next year.” He said they would stick to the Fijian flair of rugby coupled with more structure in the scrums and lineout.
“We can’t play unstructured rugby, which is our strength without having structure and that’s the name of the game of 15’s.
“It has more structure than 7s, so we need to dominate those areas so once again we going back to the bread and butter of rugby which is going to be the scrum and lineout, making sure we get the ball and put them under pressure.”
Waisea Nayacalevu will captain the Flying Fijians.
“We will carry on with the captain from our couple of seasons. Waisea Nayacalevu will be the captain and will be playing at 13, so he is continuing his role and he has people around him who have good leadership qualities .
“When things get tough on the paddock, we will be able to draw on everyone’s experience and make the right decisions.”
Former Flying Fijians hooker Graham Dewes has started his coaching job with the Flying Fijians and takes over from Jason Ryan as the new forwards’ coach. Cotter said that Dewes had settled well and is getting comfortable in coaching the Flying Fijians.
“He obviously has his heart and soul in the job and is technically a very good coach.
“He is getting to know the players and they are getting to know him and we are carrying on the important work needed to win balls and dominate the set piece.
“We enjoy having him with us for this tour.”
The Flying Fijians take on Scotland at 1am on Sunday.
