Senirusi Seruvakula reflects on Fiji Women's first Rugby World Cup

Fiji Coach Senirusi Seruvakula spoke after his side lost 44-0 to France in their final group game, sharing his pride in the team’s achievement in getting to the Rugby World Cup and the takeaways to improve themselves in the future.

“I’m very happy and I’m very proud of the girls. We take back one win. I know my girls - more than 80 percent, they’ve learned to play rugby this year.” Seruvakula said after the match. ”For us to come here and play against England and play against France and South Africa, we’re all so privileged because this is the only time for us to play against big nations like this. I’m very proud of the girls and how they performed at this Rugby World Cup.”

For Fiji to finally make their bow in the competition was a huge deal and with the introduction of the WXV format from 2023 they should have improved fixture opportunities, something their coach was quick to point out as important for continued growth. “These girls, they deserve to be playing in the Rugby World Cup. But it’s different coming to the World Cup, the tests that we played - there’s not enough games for us. That’s not an excuse. Like I said before, it's a very big learning. There’s a very big margin between South Pacific teams and top nations - they play more tests than us. For us, the most Tests any of Fiji’s girls have played is 11. I’ve been fighting for more games, and I’m thankful to World Rugby for giving us games this year against Fiji, against the Wallaroos, and against Canada. We need to go to big tournaments and play in big tournaments that can prepare us well in going to the next Rugby World Cup.”

Ending on a loss and without scoring any points in their final game, Fiji nonetheless played with heart and their coach recognised the gap between them and their opponents. “It was a big lesson for us, especially playing against a very professional team - they’ve been playing very consistently. It’s a big learning coming into this tournament and we’ll be very positive about what we take back. For them, they deserved the win - they played for the 80 minutes and we were not mentally focused for the first 10 minutes, and coming into halftime, which cost us the game.”

“The scrum went well for us. We did hold the French scrum and that was one big step for us - because a lot of the girls, they only learned how to scrum this year, a couple of months ago, and coming on to the world stage and playing against the French side, they all really stepped up”