'Anything below excellent' won't beat Fiji
Josh Adams scored three tries the last time Wales and Fiji met in Rugby World Cup mode – but he also remembers it being fraught with early problems.
Although Wales, inspired by Adams’ hat-trick heroics, won 29-17 to book a quarter-final place at the 2019 tournament in Japan, they had to endure a torrid opening.
Fiji scored two early tries and Wales had hooker Ken Owens yellow-carded during a dominant opening in Oita.
But Wales managed to regroup, with wing Adams’ treble underpinning his eventual status as the 2019 World Cup’s top try-scorer.
“We mentioned that today,” he said, ahead of Sunday’s Pool C clash.
“That game didn’t start too well for us – worst possible start in fact, 10-0 down after quarter of an hour and a yellow card as well.
“But we just reiterated the point that none of us went to try and do anything different, none of us had to go off-script, none of us wanted to go and do something magical off your own back.
“I think what we set out prior to the game we still tried to implement, regardless of the yellow card or scoreline and that was what allowed us to get back into that game.
“It will be no different this Sunday, and I think the importance of us understanding what we need to do early on – especially early on – is important to our execution.
“It is not just delivering your role, it’s about being excellent at what you are doing as well. With this Fiji team and how good they have been, anything below excellent might not be enough.
“We all understand we have a very important job, but I think the amount of time we have trained and talked about the first game, as a team we are all desperate to go and play.”
Fiji, now under the coaching guidance of former Newport forward Simon Raiwalui, are currently above Wales in the world rankings.
And their World Cup preparations also included an historic Twickenham victory over England, suggesting that they have genuine World Cup quarter-final potential.
Adams added: “You don’t blow them away early doors, and they have got a lot better since we played them in 2019.
“Their game looks a lot more structured, and this is probably the toughest Fiji team we would have faced.”
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Not sure they the article doesn’t hit on TMO this year, that’s were they were putting focus right. The fact the other areas haven’t improved shows just how poor the comp is at focusing on its direction. There should still have been further gains in both those areas this year even it if didn’t have the same focus as others. The whistle to restart time, like touch finders of 26 seconds, surely has to be a key focus area next year. Why should a side be given so much time to kick for touch? Cut that down to 5 or 10 seconds, penalties both become less of key stalling/defensive strategy, and become more ‘live’ with tap kicks becoming much more favourable quick actions. Theres absolutely no reason we have to wait over 10 secs for the preferred kicker to walk up and try and take maximum advantage, especially when half the time its just a delay tactic to give the forwards time to plan, as the kicker hardly even trys to find the corner with his kick, anyone could have kicked it straight out for the lineout.
Go to commentsShame. Hope something else can be arranged.
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