All Black great tells Fiji they face World Cup 'final'

Former All Black Daryl Gibson has told the Fiji players their clash with Australia in St Entienne on Sunday is their “final” as defeat would ruin their Rugby World Cup quarter final hopes.

The controversial 26-32 loss to Wales on Sunday has left Fiji needing to defeat Australia something they have not achieved in previous tournaments.

At the 2019 World Cup, Fiji were beaten by Australia 39-21 having lost 28-13 in their 2015 clash and 55-12 in the 2007 World Cup.

Gibson, the Fiji backs coach, told the Fiji Times:“Australia is our final now. We know that we need to beat Australia to stay in the competition. That’s a pretty simple formula. Getting two bonus points (against Wales) might be crucial, but it will only be crucial if we win the struggle.

“We’ve proven we can compete against Tier 1 nations and we proved that against England and the close game against Wales. We have a big task, but it’s not over — nothing is impossible.

“The message to the boys at half-time (against Wales) was that we’ve trained in much higher intensities and longer ball in play times. So we’ve got the legs in us as shown by the strong bench that came on and got us close to victory.”

Fiji outside half Teti Tela echoed those words and said: “We knew we were going to 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.

“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.

“Against the Wallabies, we will be ready. 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.”