Fiji v Scotland, 24 June

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FIJI v SCOTLAND  
24 June 2017
KO: 14:30 FJT (UTC+12)
ANZ National Stadium, Suva

Live on telly somewhere with the mad Fijian commentator

Referee: Pascal Gaüzère (France)
ARs: [tbc]
TMO: [tbc]

A. Head to Head

6 Played 6
1 Won 5
0 Drawn 0
5 Lost 1
145 Points 182

B. Recent Form

16 June 2012
Churchill Park, Lautoka
Fiji 25 – 37 Scotland

14 November 2009
Murrayfield, Edinburgh
Scotland 23 – 10 Fiji

1 November 2003
Aussie Stadium, Sydney
Scotland 22 – 20 Fiji

24 November 2002
Murrayfield, Edinburgh
Scotland 36 – 22 Fiji

C. TEAMS:

FIJI 
K Murimurivalu; J Tuisova, A Vulivuli, J Vatubua, P Osborne; B Volavola, S Vularika; P Ravai, S Koto, K Tawake, T Cavubati; L Nakarawa, D Waqaniburotu; P Yato, A Qera (capt).

Replacements: T Talemaitoga, J Veitayaki, M Ducivaki, S Nabou, N Dawai, H Seniloli, J Stewart, B Masilevu.

SCOTLAND
R Jackson; D Hoyland, N Grigg, D Taylor, T Visser; P Horne, H Pyrgos; A Allan, R Ford, WP Nel; T Swinson, J Gray; J Barclay (capt), J Hardie, J Strauss.

Replacements: F Brown, G Reid, Z Fagerson, B Toolis, H Watson, R Wilson, A Price, G Tonks.

I don't think I've ever laughed so hard listening to a rendition of Flower of Scotland as I did just then.

The band absolutely butchered it, playing at less than half tempo!

Bet it got the boys fired up though.

Strauss saying hello to Nakarawa there

Scotland nice and steady so far.

One might even say 'strong and stable'

What channel is this on?

It's on the SRU and Workd Rugby websites.

Ozzy3213 wrote:What channel is this on?

http://www.scottishrugby.org/scottish-rugby-live

http://www.worldrugby.org/worldrugbytv/video

Brilliant. Thanks.

Not sure on this ref, not saying he's biased, certainly not saying he's competent

Try machine ROSS FORD scores!

Commentator:"And it's appropriate for the try to be scored by Ross Ford. What a player he's been for our game! And what a role model for Scottish Rugby!"

I'm assuming at some point in that paragraph he began talking about someone else.

Dammit!

Fiji are fantastic when they get going.

On the basis of the last 5 minutes you have to say that if given the option to start again knowing what he knows now, it would be advisable for Ruaridh Jackson not to choose rugby union.

IanBru wrote:Commentator:"And it's appropriate for the try to be scored by Ross Ford. What a player he's been for our game! And what a role model for Scottish Rugby!"

I'm assuming at some point in that paragraph he began talking about someone else.

To be fair, Fordy is a great role model and a great player on his day. Was a Lion also. And was part of a Poopie international team for most of his caps...

Taylor off, Tonks on

So, Tonks at 15, Jackson to 10 and Horne to 12.

Scotland need to tighten up. Fiji are dangerous.

Good boy Ruaridh! I take it all back!

Well... most of it.

Jackson steals a try!

Watson with an immediate impact.

14-14

Naka-bloody-rawa

The gap between our 2nd and 3rd choices, and in some 1st and 2nd is unacceptable for a team in our position. The lack of TMO is disappointing but we shouldn't be relying on a video camera in Fiji

They do some mental things, but Fiji are so exciting to watch.

Fiji with a 10 point lead... 27-17

Why is there no urgency whatsoever?

What happened to the clock?

Big mistake to let Dunbar go home early. We've had too many first choice backs missing for this game.
The first up tackles haven't been good enough. We've looked like Scotland under Robinson/Johnson.

The TMO has put the clock back again.

Brown try but Jacskon missed the conversion.

27-22. 4mins to go...

Congrats to Fiji.

Townsend has work to do.

A lot of players given an oppurtunity, a lot fell short. 2 years out Hoyland, Tonks, Grigg and Jackson needing a lifeline to reach the world cup. Horne may be saved by his versatility.

Well done Fiji.
We were second best today, comfortably. First up tackling poor, '30 missed tackles' from us was really p poor. Too much yapping to the referee too, so Toonie has had a good look at the broader squad, and got answers.
Unfortunately the answers weren't good enough.

Well done to Fiji who were certainly up for the game and took their chances, even if they were forward! They kicked their points as well, which ended up being the difference in the scores.

We were very poor behind the scrum, none of the backs really did their claims to be in the first choice team many favours and a few of them, Henry P, Hoyland in particular may have played their way out of it. I will let Grigg off to much blame as it was his first test match, but others such as Visser and Horne who have the experience, did not use it.

We are still very reliant on FR at FH to make things tick for us and getting some back up in place for him is surely the most pressing concern for Toonie. Horne once again showed that he is not the answer.

No shame in losing to Fiji though and take nothing away from them. They are a good side these days.

So what happened? Did we play badly? Or were Fiji just better? From the BBC report we took some booming tackles.

RuggerRadge2611 wrote:So what happened? Did we play badly? Or were Fiji just better? From the BBC report we took some booming tackles.

We played againgst Fiji in exactly the way you should not, mainlyt got into a game of chuck it around which we were never going to win. The ref did not do us many favours either including missing a glaring forward pass for one of their tries. That was not why we lost though, it was just that not one was controlling the game. The backs collectively showed no creativity and went backwards once Duncan Taylor went off injured.

A few of our smaller guys, Horne, Hoyland and Grigg also found out that international rugby can be a rough tough game and took some battering from some robust Fijian tackling!

Well that's disappointing. In a way it is a good thing though as Townsend will stew on that result for the next 5 months and I'll expect a backlash come in the AIs - if we'd galloped to an easy we the players might have started to get a bit carried away.

It also shows we don't have real strength in depth yet - especially in the back line which was horribly average once Taylor went off.

Well done Fiji!

A lot of new faces though, and a quite stripped back team. Townsend will now know he's got a bit of work to do. But overall a good summer tour. I thought we'd win 2 out if 3, but not the 2 we did win.

Happy with how things went, and I'm glad we got a really tough test against Fiji.

Not overly disappointed about this defeat given the number of players that we were missing - these tests are ideal to try out new players at this level so we've learned a bit about our depth players. Perhaps the only disappointment is that we missed out on winning all three summer tests - winning breeds confidence and enhances the ability to win close matches, so I would have liked to carry that winning mentality into the AIs and 6N.

Overall, it's been a positive season at international level so can't complain too much. I wonder if we'll be offered a 2/3 match test series vs SA or Australia given our improvement over the last year.

It's been nice to get a bit of depth, see what works and in this case what doesn't.

Saw some of the Fiji tries, fantastic stuff. The fact we finished with Jackson, Horne and Grigg in the midfield

No wonder we lost. Sending Dunbar home perhaps an error by the Tombola.

The whole game is on YouTube

https://youtu.be/Fsj8Kd69QyA

Strange that Matt Scott wasn't involved, at least on the bench. So will this be the last we see of Jackson, Horne, Pyrgos and one or two others for Scotland? Been a good tour for Toolis I would say, he's ahead of Swinson now and may even challenge the Grays for a starting spot.

We missed 30 tackles apparently... Not very good

Just watched the game and to be honest we were pretty awful. Basic skill levels were poor, and far too many handling errors and headless chicken rugby. Disappointing flashback to the Scotland of a few years ago and highlighting how reliant we are on some of our key players.

Easy to say that that this was a much weakened team and a chance to try out some new players but I’m not happy with accepting the result on that basis on 2 fronts:

Firstly the noise from the camp all week has been that we need to win this game, that the tour hasn’t been a success if we don’t. This is the standard we’re setting for ourselves now and we’ve fallen short in a game we should’ve won. If the players themselves are genuinely saying they needed the win here for the tour to be a success then we need to hold them to that. Therefore we’ve underperformed in this tour.

Secondly we’re 5th in the world. We’ve been rightly shouting about that fact, and the harsh reality is that teams at that level can’t be losing games like this. At this level you’re under scrutiny in every single game and winning matters. You might expect a lesser performance if you don’t have your strongest side out, but you still need the win. Not having Finn Russell pulling the strings at 10 today and Hoggy cutting lines from fullback didn’t cause the endless stream of dropped balls, knock ons, missed tackles, passes straight out into touch etc.

This is a harsh assessment I know, but the fact is the expectations on a side that want to be considered 5th in the world are very different to those on a side that are 8th or 9th. We clearly have issues with squad depth which we need to work on, but the players out there today could and should have done better and we should have won that game.

Just watched it.
I thought defensively our line speed was poor: possibly missed Dunbar leading the line up. Certainly the heat and humidity would have to be factored in, but it's probably very similar to what Japan will be like come World Cup time.
The play flowed better when Jackson was 10; so we learned that Jackson is a 10 and not a 15 , that Horne is a 12 not a 10 and that Tonks can fill in at 15.

We also learned that Damian Hoyland makes a useless speedbump. he hardly slowed Tuisova at all.

That was about it really.

The game has to go down as a misjudgment by both players and management. I wonder if we even watched the Fiji-Australia game in preparation.

If we really had to win this game, then Russell and Dell should not have been released to the Lions and Dunbar should not have been sent home. Either the purpose was to blood new players - in which case we did and and should say so - or it was to win the game. The whole thing smells of Gatland not telling Townsend the truth about his intention for the players. 

The truth is that we thought we could win with the team that we put out and we were mistaken. We seemed to forget that cohesion doesn't happen automatically and the whole team seemed to lose focus completely after the Aussie game. 

Hopefully Toonie will have learned from this.

Alan Tait is the next to criticise Gatland for not playing the geographical 6.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/40422152