Ireland fears Fijian power

Ireland centre Stuart McCloskey believes the Flying Fijians can pose a major physical challenge when the sides meet in the Nations Championship in Dublin on Sunday morning (Fiji time).

McCloskey says Ireland will look to use structure and movement to avoid being drawn into a physical battle against Fiji.

Fiji are yet to register a point from four outings in the competition after losing 54-17 to France in Paris last weekend. However, the Ulster centre expects a tough encounter against the Flying Fijians.

"When they get it right they can be incredibly physical, they can get the ball moving, depends how the weather is, hopefully there's a bit of rain so they don't offload as much," McCloskey told BBC Sport.

"We'll go after them in different ways and will hopefully be a bit more structured than they are.

"It's good once or twice a year to have a game this physical. Hopefully we won't get too much into an arm wrestle with them, we'll try to let our shape do the work, give us one-on-ones instead of running into brick walls."

Ireland have won three of their four matches in the competition and are third in the Northern Hemisphere standings.

Despite Fiji's disappointing result against France, McCloskey warned against underestimating the Flying Fijians, pointing to their victory during the Japan Rugby Union's centenary celebrations last month.

"They obviously had a great result against Japan in the summer, winning over there.

"I don't think they'll be too happy with the weekend, away in France, but it's happened to the best of us, we saw what happened to us going there in the Six Nations on a Thursday night and we got 'hockeyed' a bit as well.

"That can happen to anybody against a good French team," McCloskey added.

Fiji and Ireland will kick off at 8.10am on Sunday (Fiji time).