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Simon Raiwalui ‘in no doubt’ grieving Sam Matavesi will be ready to face England
By PA
Sam Matavesi has been named on the bench for Fiji’s World Cup quarter-final against England, despite his father Sireli dying earlier in the week.
Matavesi left the Islanders’ camp in Marseille to attend the funeral in Cornwall, where Sireli had settled after a tour by the Fiji Barbarians in the 1980s, but returned on Thursday.
The Northampton hooker is set to appear in the second half of Sunday’s Stade Veldrome clash, with head coach Simon Raiwalui confident he is ready for the occasion.
“We had a setback during the week with Samuel Matavesi’s father passing away. He came back in this morning. He was adamant that he wanted to be here,” Raiwalui said.
“He’s a fantastic young man, very good on his details, so there are no worries there. It’s just a matter of him grieving, but I have no doubt that he will be ready to play.”
Fiji will have the support of neutrals willing a team from the Pacific Islands to qualify for the semi-finals for the first time and Raiwalui insists they are not yet ready to leave the World Cup.
“It’s massive for our country. We came to this tournament to succeed, we got through the first part and we want to continue,” he said.
“We are a nation of 900,000 people that lives and breathes rugby, and I don’t know how many Fijians worldwide.
“We had massive support from the French, from the people who come to the ground. We really want to enjoy the occasion and show our best rugby.”
“First and foremost I’m proud to be a Fijian but I’m also proud of the so-called developing nations, pushing for the global game, how we can improve it and get more opportunities, how we break that barrier down.
“This World Cup has been a fantastic example of other teams coming in and playing fantastic rugby and putting on a spectacle for the world. We are proud of where we come from and we want to embrace that.”
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Latest Comments
"fl's idea, if I can speak for him to speed things up, was for it to be semifinalists first, Champions Cup (any that somehow didn't make a league semi), then Challenge's semi finalists (which would most certainly have been outside their league semi's you'd think), then perhaps the quarter finalists of each in the same manner. I don't think he was suggesting whoever next performed best in Europe but didn't make those knockouts (like those round of 16 losers), I doubt that would ever happen."
That's not quite my idea.
For a 20 team champions cup I'd have 4 teams qualify from the previous years champions cup, and 4 from the previous years challenge cup. For a 16 team champions cup I'd have 3 teams qualify from the previous years champions cup, and 1 from the previous years challenge cup.
"The problem I mainly saw with his idea (much the same as you see, that league finish is a better indicator) is that you could have one of the best candidates lose in the quarters to the eventual champions, and so miss out for someone who got an easier ride, and also finished lower in the league, perhaps in their own league, and who you beat everytime."
If teams get a tough draw in the challenge cup quarters, they should have won more pool games and so got better seeding. My system is less about finding the best teams, and more about finding the teams who perform at the highest level in european competition.
Go to commentsWalter has been permanently psychologically damaged since his wife left him and moved in with a man from Sydney.
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