France-based reps join Fiji U20 squad, says coach

The SportsWorld Fiji Under-20 team will need to improve on their defence and attack before the World Rugby Junior World Championship in Georgia from June 27–July 18.

This was the view of head coach Tui Osborne during an interview with SUNsports yesterday.

“We have some solid foundations, but the effort was great, but we had some issues in our defensive efforts that we need to clean-up before we go into the Junior World Championship and also on attack,” he said.

Osborne said those are the areas they need to fix before they leave Fiji.

He said despite their two losses against Georgia and South Africa during their tour to South Africa, this would be a different atmosphere altogether.

“It’s an ongoing thing that we’re building on, and getting our fitness up there and trying to compete at fast pace. “We have France first, so the pace is going to be high. That’s the goal for this week,” Osborne said.

“We want to prepare well in the contact area. It’s huge because there will be collisions in that game.”

He also confirmed that there are new inclusions in the squad.

“We have a few guys already here from France, like Luke Tuvalu, Raymond Navunikaba, Sylvester Vakauliafa, Francis Peters, Mosese Tabuakoto, Aporosa Lalabalavu and we have two more coming in to join camp next week,” he said.

Osborne said the Fiji U20 comprises of players from the High Performance Unit programme with the players from France and will boost their depth of play.

“These boys have come through the HPU system, and they’ve gone abroad, so they’re within our system. It’s always good to get the value that they go get from overseas to give back to what we’re trying to build here,” Osborne said.

The Fiji U20 side is in Pool D where they face France, Australia and Spain.