Fiji Airways Flying Fijians head coach John McKee says the squad is far from being fit to beat a tier one nation.

And, the loss against Japan last week was a wake-up call, but they have ample time to make up and be ready before they face the Australian Wallabies at Sapporo Dome in their first game of the Rugby World Cup (RWC) on September 21 in Japan.

McKee took the team through some drills at Suva’s Albert Park yesterday as they prepared for the second Pacific Nations Cup (PNC) match against Canada at the ANZ Stadium on Saturday.

“Fitness level against tier one teams is not there yet, but we are progressing well. We know there’s still a lot of work to do between now and September 21,” McKee said.

Following their 21-34 loss to Japan last Saturday McKee believes players’ attitude needed to change in their remaining PNC matches and build-up to the 2019 RWC.

“We did a lot of good things in defence, but we need to be better connected. Every time we train we want to win and it’s beneficial to us to lose now, rather than finding it out at the RWC,” McKee told Fiji Sun.

Nayacalevu-mindset

Centre Waisea Nayacalevu believes players’ mindset was their downfall in Japan last Saturday. However, the team hopes to improve on that this Saturday.

“And we talked about it in camp. Moving forward to this week, Canada is a good team. It will be another tough battle,” Nayacalevu said.

Edited by Naisa Koroi

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