The Vodafone Fijian captain Temo Mayanavanua anticipates a tough encounter against Samoa in the 3rd/4th place playoff in the Oceania U20 Championship on Saturday.

Australia plays New Zealand for the Oceania U20 title in Bond University Gold Coast.

Mayanavanua made the comment following their 24-32 defeat against the strong Australian side on Tuesday while Samoa lost 23-80 to New Zealand.

Mayanavanua believes it was a good learning experience for them as they prepare for Samoa.

“The amazing part of our play against Australia is our ball retention. I’m proud the boys took that in the whole 80 minutes.

“Now going forward against Samoa, it will be a big game fighting against our Pacific brothers it will not be an easy match but I’m just reminding the boys to stay humble and don’t let the Aussie game result interfere with our preparation,” Mayanavanua said.

Mayanavanua was grateful for a competitive result against Australia.

“We want to thank the Lord Almighty and his kingdom has been with us in the past few days.

“Incredible work by our boys in our game against Australia, hats off to the boys and also we thank Australia for that tough match,” he added.

Aussies win rated ’1 out of 100’

Australian U20s coach Simon Cron rated his team’s win against Samoa “40 out of 100” but they were far worse in a 32-24 win over Fiji.

He rated his team’s performance a “1 out of 100” post match, even if it was somewhat tongue in cheek.

That assessment wouldn’t have been far from the mark, though, as one would struggle to find many positives from this Australian performance.

Of the team’s four tries, two were Efi Maafu five pointers off the back of rolling mauls and one was a slick loose ball clean up from reserve flyhalf Theo Strang.

Captain Reece Hewat scored the other try, burrowing his way over after several pick and drives.

The most glaring weaknesses were the woeful handling errors and the malfunctioning lineout.

The Aussies showed better skills when it was raining sideways on Friday than they did on Tuesday night, in picture perfect conditions.

Cron was brutally honest when he spoke to RUGBY.com.au after the match.

“The lineouts were horrific,” Cron said.

“Just over throws and poor timing. Two new locks today but that is no excuse.

“But the dropped balls…

“Tactically and technically they’re passing the ball on the line and therefore our players are trying to catch it with two Fijians on top of them – so you drop it.

“There were other occasions where the boys decided to throw a ball into the ground, behind somebody, it was really poor.

“We tried a few new things and a new player group but patterns haven’t changed and we haven’t added a whole lot in – that was just a team of individuals.”

The squad must quickly re-group ahead of a Saturday night showdown with the New Zealand U20s, who ran out 13 different starters this afternoon and still put 80 points on the Samoans.

“We’ve got to review this game because to be honest, we are still learning,” Cron said.

“A lot of the boys, their approach and how they approach tight situations.

RUGBY.com.au

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