What Simon Raiwalui made of England's video nasty session
Fijian head coach Simon Raiwalui has given his take on Fiji’s recent win over England being replayed to Steve Bortwick’s men ahead of their Rugby World Cup quarter-final clash in Marseille this weekend.
48 days ago Fiji secured their first-ever win over England, securing a 30-22 victory over Borthwick’s men in Twickenham in the Rugby World Cup warm-ups.
Defence coach Kevin Sinfield reportedly made his England player re-watch the video nasty in the lead-up to their Rugby World Cup rematch seven weeks later. The footage presumably was as much about motivation ahead of this weekend’s match as it was about video analysis.
While it was a massive win in the history of Fijian rugby, Raiwalui dismissed its relevance to this week’s seismic clash.
“It’s a different match,” said Raiwalui was asked about Sinfield’s video session. “It’s a World Cup, a knockout match now. It’s win or go home. Having played them, there’s an understanding of some of the things that they do. They have progressed since that match, playing well. It’s good that we had that chance to play them but it’s a totally different match.”
The former second row – who once played for Saracens – described England as a good tournament team.
“There was a lot in the press and the general public about the way they were playing before the actual World Cup but they play a brand of rugby to win the game, so tactically very good, [with a] powerful and creative set-piece so we’re expecting those challenges to come at us this weekend.
“They will look at the some of the things we’ve done and see how they can try to exploit us. We had the chance to play them at Twickenham so we kind of know each other a little bit, how we play. They will come at us with certain challenges and we understand that.”
He also had a word for hooker Sam Matavesi, who tragically lost his father earlier in the week.
“He came back in this morning. He was adamant that he wanted to be here. He’s a fantastic young man, very good on his details, so there are no worries there. It’s just a matter of him grieving but I have no doubt that he will be ready to play.”
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The weather was dreadful but the playing surface was great so there is no real excuse for such another poor standard of play from both sides. Dragons just the better team. But, what a shocking decision by the TMO not to award the Fifita try. This pretty much sums up Welsh rugby with poor teams and poor officials. The WRU have a lot of work to do and it needs to be done quickly to avoid rugby being lost to our future generations.
Go to commentsNo chance of Borthwick selecting any young talent. He announced his selection policy from the outset with naming a poor OF as Captain, retaining an equally poor Youngs and Vunipola brothers when there were many better EQP in the Premiership. SB revival of Leicester was based on SA muscle and a terrific Welsh flanker he has generally ignored young English talent.
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