THE Vodafone Fijiana XV suffered a heavy 55-12 defeat against the Springbok Women in their first trial match at HFC Bank Stadium in Suva yesterday.
South Africa took a 27-7 lead into halftime before extending its advantage in the second half.
The Fijiana opened the second half with a try but struggled to capitalise on their opportunities as the visitors continued to apply pressure.
Head coach Willie Walker said despite the loss, the match provided the team with a valuable indication of where they currently stand and the areas that need improvement.
“I can’t say how proud I am of our players today. They put up a great fight. South Africa was always going to be a tough ask for us today,” Walker said.
“What it does is give us a gauge of where we are currently and the areas that we need to be better at for next week.”
Walker said the team would use the weekend to review the match before working on the identified areas ahead of their next encounter against South Africa.
The coach said discipline and defence were among the main areas the team needed to address.
“We can’t allow discipline to dictate the way we play. We’ll have a review of what that looks like and how we move forward into next week,” he said.
The Fijiana captain said their defence also needed significant improvement after South Africa exposed gaps in their defensive line.
Fijiana captain Kolora Lomani said the team had expected a physical opening from the Springboks but struggled to maintain the plans they had prepared during the week.
“It was tough out there tonight. South Africa did give us what we expected in that first 20 minutes of the game,” Lomani said.
“Now we’ve just got to go back, rewatch our clips and see what we can do better leading into next week’s game.”
“They came up strong up front and we kind of just slipped off a few tackles. We just have to go back and fix up a few things and we can come back stronger next week,” she said.
She said the halftime message was centred on defensive connection and retaining possession.
“I think it was just our defence that really let us down. Our attack was a bit there, but we just gave the ball back to them a bit easier,” she said.
