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Watch: Absolutely rapid Drua wing Habosi burns the Highlanders twice
By Sam Smith
The Fijian Drua may have uncovered the game's next star finisher in Vinaya Habosi who burned the Highlanders twice early to set up tries in front of a packed house in Suva.
The 22-year-old left winger has impressed in early Super Rugby Pacific matches against Australian teams, having a standout performance against the Rebels in Melbourne where he beat 10 defenders in one night.
It took two minutes for Habosi to get his first chance against the Highlanders, when he streaked down the left hand touchline after an offload from the Drua's right wing Selestino Ravutaumada.
The nearest defender was Aaron Smith who could not keep pace with the blistering winger. His inside pass found halfback Frank Lomani who gave the Drua the best possible start by finishing under the posts.
Habosi's next big play was electric after the Highlanders were turned over at the ruck. The ball was spread to the wing where he stood up Sam Gilbert and went around the outside.
Outpacing the cover defence of Mitch Hunt and Fetuli Paea, he burnt down the touchline to go 75 metres to score an incredible try which sent the Suva crowd into raptures.
"That was a full 80 minute effort - a hell of a game and I'm so proud of our boys for sticking in there," Highlanders skipper and halfback Aaron Smith told Stan Sport.
"We knew the Fijians were going to be very dangerous as they're a team who can score out of nothing and they got a couple of early ones but we stuck to our plan."
Drua captain Meli Derenalagi was disappointed they couldn't deliver a first-up win.
"We knew the Highlanders were going to come at us and I'm proud of the effort of the boys, trying to stay competitive and playing 80 minute rugby," he said.
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Go to commentsHi all. Thanks for commenting. JD is right: the headline is not mine. My headline was what ended up as the first sentence: “Why is Super Rugby Pacific so exciting this season?”. I am certainly not claiming that teams from one competition are better than the teams from another. This type of discussion is entirely subjective (as the teams do not play each other, and even with the players face each other in their national teams, it is in different systems, conditions, etc.). The season being exciting has nothing to do how well the Wallabies will do against the Lions, or against New Zealand.
My sole purpose here was to try explore quantitatively a ‘qualitative’ impression (that the season is exciting).
On Graham’s point about extreme results skewing the results, and Ed’s comment on removing outliers, this is precisely why I report the median values as well as the averages. The median is not skewed by outliers. If the margins of 5 games are 3, 4, 5, 8 and 10 points, the median margin is 5. If there was one blowout and the margins were 3, 4, 5, 8 and 57 points, the median margin is still 5.
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