World Cup shock: Flying Fiji upset Eddie Jones' Wallabies
Simione Kuruvoli inspired Fiji as they edged past Australia 22-15 with a fine performance at the Rugby World Cup.
Fiji’s brilliance at the turnover, combined with the clinical boot of Kuruvoli, saw them pick up their first win of the tournament after last week’s defeat by Wales.
Australian full-back Ben Donaldson was opportunistic early on and punished a Fiji high tackle when he converted the first opportunity of the game to give Australia a 3-0 lead after three minutes.
The Pacific Islanders sought a response through scrum-half Kuruvoli, who tied the score before converting another penalty to give his side a 6-3 lead after 20 minutes.
The first try of the game came in the 22nd minute through Mark Nawaqanitawase. The winger chased the long ball, took a quick line-out and combined with Samu Kerevi before he received the offload to add five more to to Australia’s tally.
But the Wallabies’ hard work started to unravel through ill-discipline and they started to concede needless penalties, much to the delight of Kuruvoli who added six more and the half ended 12-8 in favour of the Fijians.
Fiji extended their lead when Carter Gordon misjudged the bounce of a high ball which invited Josua Tuisov to storm through and make it 19-8 in the 42nd minute.
Suliasi Vunivalu went over late on for Australia after Fiji scored another penalty but it was not enough and they held on to complete a memorable 22-15 victory.
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I agree with a lot of this. Especially changing the contract side of AB rugby - even if the current structure is not the main reason Razor and others before him keep selecting players past their prime and only introducing new ones when forced to by injury. Then they act all surprised when a new player lives up to their potential and performs! Deification of good older players is a problem because, like Foster, it implies they have secret knowledge that plebs don't - despite the evidence before our eyes. Razor's first year has been a pretty big average and one hopes he gets some courage back around selection and game plan from lessons learned this year. Not hopeful though based on the selection for Italy. If they win well, (as they should) he will tout it as justification for his persistence this year but the reality is a "second" team from the squad would probably do the job.
Go to commentsIrish injury count is going up by the minute.
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