The Italian rugby team arrived at Nadi International Airport last night with a mission to beat the Vodafone Flying Fijians on their home ground on Saturday.

Head coach Conor O’Shea told SUNsports that despite being winless on Fijian soil that is irrelevant to them right now.

Records show the Flying Fijians and Italy have played a total of 10 Test matches- each winning five times. The Flying Fijians have a 100 percent winning record at home.

“I always look at every game as different,” he said.

“I’m new anyway so history to me is irrelevant. In actual fact we want to make history on Saturday.”

O’Shea said they have learned a lot from their 34-13 loss to Scotland in Singapore over the weekend in the match between the two Six Nations championship sides. They are eager to bounce back by winning at the ANZ Stadium, Suva.

“It’s brilliant and we’re delighted to be here and it has been a long trip. We are looking forward to the week ahead and the challenge against Fiji,” the Irishman said.

“We’ve a big challenge and we’ve a young squad and we’ve been learning. We have learnt a lot from the Scotland game.”

He believes Flying Fijians did a lot of many good things against Australia despite the 37-14 margin.

“Fiji was unlucky not to score a number of tries.”

However, O’Shea rates his side as the team to beat this Saturday despite the difficulties they have faced.

“They’re unbelievable teams. There are lots of things to change but at the same time there a lot of challenges as well. We made 154 tackles against Scotland but we never stopped trying. We’ve to hold our discipline and we don’t give out a lot of broken field opportunity which the Fijians love.”

The match kickoff at 2.30pm.

Edited by Leone Cabenatabua

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