All eyes on Vakatawa

A former France rugby centre could be making his Flying Fijians Test debut in the Nations Championship currently underway in the United Kingdom.

This was after SUNsports was reliably informed yesterday that Virimi Vakatawa has joined the Flying Fijians camp to replace the injured Semi Radradra.

Vakatawa played for the Fijian Drua in the Super Rugby Pacific and was named in the Flying Fijians 50-member squad but was not included in the 32-member squad.

He recently played for the Barbarians FC in their clash against South Africa in Cape Town followed by Wales in London.

Vakatawa was still in the UK when he got the call to join the Flying Fijians.

The Flying Fijians suffered a 39-24 loss to Wales in yesterday’s (Fiji time) Nations Championship opener in Cardiff.

Joining Radradra on the injury list is tighthead prop Tim Hoyt.

Interim Flying Fijians head coach Senirusi Seruvakula said Radradra and Hoyt who was also injured in the 55th minute, would be out for six weeks.

Radradra suffered an ACL injury and was replaced by Kalaveti Ravouvou, 28 minutes into the match. The Flying Fijians are leading the stats with most metres’ ran, most carries and offloads.

However, Seruvakula was disappointed with their performance.

“We had a lot of opportunity in the first half. We felt that we were on a roll, but there were some areas where we were careless, we were pushing the pass, that cost us the penalties and denied our opportunity to score tries also,” Seruvakula said.

“Full credit to the Wales team. They deserved that win, but we were unsettled at times and it was very disappointing. We thought that the second half we were going to go and play the way we wanted, but it did not go our way.”

While it was a home game away from home, the head coach said it was a great experience seeing the number of Fijian supporters.

Fijian rugby

He hopes to change things around when they host England in Liverpool on Sunday.

“We just need to win the collision. Our carry with the ball- we need to go low and our supporting players need to be there,” he said on what areas they needed to work on.

“We were slow at areas, as the Welsh dominated the break down, and we need to work on our breakdown and also our set-pieces, especially in the scrum.”

Seruvakula added that they wanted to play the Fijian way of rugby.

“That’s our brand of rugby. We train for that in the week. But like I said, sometimes we really push those passes and we were penalised for it.

“The players have to be smart in the red zone area where we don’t have to do that. But in our half, it’s safe, we can do that. But we just need to be smart in doing our style of rugby in those areas.”

Flying Fijians captain Tevita Ikanivere said they would be unstoppable once they get their combination right.

“I think once we find that balance, it’s going to be great for us as a team and we’ll start getting our wins,” Ikanivere said.

“We definitely will be better. We’ve got lessons to learn from this game, we’ve got positives too. So we’re going to carry that on into next week and get better against England.

“We made some beautiful breaks from our own end, we got into their green zone and fair play to Wales. They chased back so hard, but it’s only up to us.

“You have to sight your target before you offload. If not, you just have to take it to ground and that’s the process.

“You can slow the game down and build pace up again once you get comfortable. It’s all about the balance and I know once we find that balance, we’re going to be a very dangerous team.”