Congrats Fiji

[sefton]

I wish we had some of our Islander mates from PR here as this is a great day and well deserved.

[sockwithaticket]

Much better than us, fully deserved it. If anything, the scoreline flatters England.

[tc27]

Yeah a historic win.

Always thought they got the hard end of the stick in the 2015 opener

[ASMO]

Brilliant win and totally deserved, well done.

[C69]

Excellent win. Very controlled and great game management
A virtual cert to beat Wales and get trough to the next round at the RWC

[Hal Jordan]

100%, they deserved to win and no mistake.

[Margin__Walker]

Yep. Cracking performance. Well deserved

[Ymx]

I’m sure we did have one in the early days of this bored?!! Or was he not Fijian?

He was a bit of a loose cannon.

Was he banned?

[Ymx]

Comets.

Looks like this was his last post.

rich Israelis/jews fund Israel , mind you money that should be going to the people of the US for medicare and infrastructure is going to Israel, you know Israel was the first country to get all its citizens vaccinated agaisnt covid whereas the US which funded them have barely been in the same time range gotten 5% of Americans vaccinated..to make things worse, Israel blocked the vaccines from going to the Palestinians as well an just when US announced they are leaving the middle east, somehow magically them evil "hamas" attacked poor defenseless Israel and now the US might be forced to keep thei forces there....... i sometimes feel like hitler was onto something ..


will give you the benefit of the doubt this time but please tread carefully

[sefton]

Comets was always a loon.

[Slick]

As I said in the match thread, I really hope this embarrasses WR into actually bothering about the tier 2 nations. What a sport we would have if the Pacific Islands, a couple from South and North American and a couple more European teams were successful.

Fuck growing the sport by breaking the good stuff, add to the good stuff

[Line6 HXFX]

I mean in terms of success, look no further than Wales.
3 million nation of small people, who don't mine coal any more, was recently ranked no1 in the world.
Physical fitness and being a physical specimen isn't part of their religion, as it is to South sea Islanders, so they have to rely on tactics, wits and (in the words of Colin Charvus) "bouncebackability".

Wales are the true rugby miracle for me. Not a nation of man mountain 6 foot 4 genetic rugby gods, from fiji...that just have to get their shit together for six months..to win every game.

Congrats Fiji.

[SaintK]

As I said in the match thread, I really hope this embarrasses WR into actually bothering about the tier 2 nations. What a sport we would have if the Pacific Islands, a couple from South and North American and a couple more European teams were successful.

Fuck growing the sport by breaking the good stuff, add to the good stuff

Agree with your sentiments but, are they not funding the Drua team in the SH competition?
Which is a start.

[sefton]

I mean in terms of success, look no further than Wales.
3 million nation of small people, who don't mine coal any more, was recently ranked no1 in the world.
Physical fitness and being a physical specimen isn't part of their religion, as it is to South sea Islanders, so they have to rely on tactics, wits and (in the words of Colin Charvus) "bouncebackability".

Wales are the true rugby miracle for me. Not a nation of man mountain 6 foot 4 genetic rugby gods, from fiji...that just have to get their shit together for six months..to win every game.

Congrats Fiji.

That is possibly the most ignorant post about rugby I’ve seen in a long while.

[SaintK]

I mean in terms of success, look no further than Wales.
3 million nation of small people, who don't mine coal any more, was recently ranked no1 in the world.
Physical fitness and being a physical specimen isn't part of their religion, as it is to South sea Islanders, so they have to rely on tactics, wits and (in the words of Colin Charvus) "bouncebackability".

Wales are the true rugby miracle for me. Not a nation of man mountain 6 foot 4 genetic rugby gods, from fiji...that just have to get their shit together for six months..to win every game.

Congrats Fiji.

That is possibly the most ignorant post about rugby I’ve seen in a long while.

Not his firat and won't be his last!

[Slick]

As I said in the match thread, I really hope this embarrasses WR into actually bothering about the tier 2 nations. What a sport we would have if the Pacific Islands, a couple from South and North American and a couple more European teams were successful.

Fuck growing the sport by breaking the good stuff, add to the good stuff

Agree with your sentiments but, are they not funding the Drua team in the SH competition?
Which is a start.

They are I think. My point is, look what a difference it makes and do more

[dpedin]

Bill Mata carries 19 times on Saturday and made 61 metres, his opposite number, Ben Earls made 5 carries for 16. Chessum and Cole each made ONE carry for 1 metre and made ONE tackle each.

[JM2K6]

Bill Mata carries 19 times on Saturday and made 61 metres, his opposite number, Ben Earls made 5 carries for 16. Chessum and Cole each made ONE carry for 1 metre and made ONE tackle each.

Earl had made 2 carries for zero metres on about 60 minutes if I recall correctly. Made a lot of tackles but also dropped a straightforward enough catch that would likely have been a try and was caught napping for one of the Fiji tries. One of his worst performances for England and hopefully that's the end of the experiment of having him at 8 - for whatever reason it hides his strengths.

[sockwithaticket]

As I said in the match thread, I really hope this embarrasses WR into actually bothering about the tier 2 nations. What a sport we would have if the Pacific Islands, a couple from South and North American and a couple more European teams were successful.

Fuck growing the sport by breaking the good stuff, add to the good stuff

Tbh I think the idea that any of the Island teams other than Fiji could be anything more than a tough tier 2 side is fanciful.. Fiji has close to 1m people + it's diaspora, but Samoa is 200K and Tonga about 100K. Even taking into account their diasporas and a disproportionate allocation of resources (which I'm sure other tier 2 nations would have an opinion on) there's only so much that can be done to try and elevate such tiny countries.

[Slick]

As I said in the match thread, I really hope this embarrasses WR into actually bothering about the tier 2 nations. What a sport we would have if the Pacific Islands, a couple from South and North American and a couple more European teams were successful.

Fuck growing the sport by breaking the good stuff, add to the good stuff

Tbh I think the idea that any of the Island teams other than Fiji could be anything more than a tough tier 2 side is fanciful.. Fiji has close to 1m people + it's diaspora, but Samoa is 200K and Tonga about 100K. Even taking into account their diasporas and a disproportionate allocation of resources (which I'm sure other tier 2 nations would have an opinion on) there's only so much that can be done to try and elevate such tiny countries.

Samoa has pretty similar playing numbers to Scotland and if you take into account diaspora probably a fair few more.

[Uncle fester]

As I said in the match thread, I really hope this embarrasses WR into actually bothering about the tier 2 nations. What a sport we would have if the Pacific Islands, a couple from South and North American and a couple more European teams were successful.

Fuck growing the sport by breaking the good stuff, add to the good stuff

Tbh I think the idea that any of the Island teams other than Fiji could be anything more than a tough tier 2 side is fanciful.. Fiji has close to 1m people + it's diaspora, but Samoa is 200K and Tonga about 100K. Even taking into account their diasporas and a disproportionate allocation of resources (which I'm sure other tier 2 nations would have an opinion on) there's only so much that can be done to try and elevate such tiny countries.

Samoa has pretty similar playing numbers to Scotland and if you take into account diaspora probably a fair few more.

That's a very good point. What Scotland had that Samoa doesn't is first world infrastructure and a wide tv audience through the 6n.

But they definitely don't have a bigger playing pool.