Rugby-Fiji look to soften up Wallabies before Lions series
MELBOURNE (Reuters) -All but forgotten in the hype of a British and Irish Lions tour, Fiji have gathered in a rain-soaked corner of eastern Australia to plot a confidence-killing defeat of Joe Schmidt's Wallabies.
Fiji's Australian coach Mick Byrne has brought a strong squad for Sunday's test in Newcastle, the hosts' last warmup before the Lions' series-opener on July 19.
The stakes are high for the Wallabies, who lost seven out of 13 tests last season and can ill-afford to stumble against opponents that stunned them at the 2023 World Cup.
However, the season-opener is also important for the Pacific Islanders, who insist they now rank among the elite "Tier One" nations that once ignored them between World Cups.
Times have changed.
Since humbling the Wallabies 22-15 in Saint-Etienne at the World Cup in France, a defeat ranked among Australia's darkest days in rugby, Fiji have had no shortage of top tier competition.
Scotland, Wales and Ireland all hosted them last autumn, while New Zealand played them in the United States.
Fiji will face Scotland at home a week after taking on the Wallabies, with glamour matches to come in November against England, at Twickenham, and France.
Byrne, who took over from Simon Raiwalui after the World Cup, will want concrete gains in his second season in charge ahead of the inaugural Nations Championship next year, which Fiji are expected to be a part of.
While dominating Japan and other Pacific rivals, Fiji's sole win against the top tier sides last season was a 24-19 win against struggling Wales in Cardiff.
Fiji's thrilling running game has otherwise been no match for the big dogs' forward power and set-piece discipline.
Not that Fiji will ditch their natural style, said Byrne.
"We need to grow our game. We need to continue to grow without losing what our players do naturally," he told reporters on Tuesday.
"Sixty-percent of the game is played quite clinically and 40% of the game is played quite open.
"When it comes to the 40%, we're some of the best players in the world when the game opens up through turnovers and kick-returns, etc.
"The other 60% of the game, we're working really hard in maintaining good, strong discipline.
"There's a lot of people talk about whether we're going to lose our Fijian way. We never lose our Fijian way."
If anything, the bonds are only growing stronger due to Fijian Drua, the nation's first professional team who just completed their fourth season in Super Rugby with Australian and New Zealand opponents.
More than a third of Byrne's 32-man squad are Drua players, making integration and combination-building easier.
Australia's squad includes only one overseas-based player in lock Will Skelton, and the hosts have had more time to prepare than the Fijians, whose last win in Australia was in 1954.
The Wallabies reviewed footage of the Saint-Etienne debacle as part of their preparations for Sunday.
Both teams have moved on since then with different coaches but the Fijians believe they can produce a sequel to the Wallabies' World Cup horror show.
"I told the boys, we've done it once, so surely we can do it again," said loose forward Bill Mata.
"To get a win over Australia, in Australia, that'd be a message for the whole team."
(Reporting by Ian Ransom in Melbourne; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
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