Fiji Airways Flying Fijians head coach John McKee believes the team needs to improve its kicking game despite beating Samoa 10-3 in the last round of the Pacific Nations Cup at Suva’s ANZ Stadium yesterday.

“We didn’t win the kicking duels,” he said.

“It was that sort of a physical en­counter where neither team was giving anything away at the ad­vantage line so it was very hard to build continuity and we didn’t need to kick.

“If you analyse the game, Samoa probably won the kicking game to­night.”

There was some criticism of Ben Volavola for kicking away posses­sion too much.

There was a sense that the aimless kicking allowed Samoa to gain a foothold in the game and push back the Fijians.

Samoa head coach Steve Jackson felt they did enough to win the game, while his captain Jack Lam appeared unhappy with some of the referee’s decisions.

The visitors crossed the line at the death, but were denied a try after the referee ruled a knock on.

“I think we deserved to win and the scoreline doesn’t reflect how we played,” Jackson said.

“I’m proud of my team. We gave Fiji one turnover and they scored but in terms of possession and ter­ritory, we were way in front and controlled the game well.”

Edited by Naisa Koroi

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