With three Australian halves not confirmed to make it in time, Flying Fijians head coach Vern Cotter may have to stick with last week’s combination of Simione Kuruvoli and Ben Volavola in the second Test against the All Blacks on Saturday.
Speaking in a Fiji Rugby Union media Zoom conference from Hamilton this afternoon Cotter said the team would have to adapt if the players from Australia didn’t make it, the team was prepared to do the best they could with what was available to them.
“We may want to become more strategic in how we operate but that will depend as well and who we have at halfback because a lot of our strategic kicking comes from the halves and a lot of responsibility was put on our halfbacks,” Cotter said
“When Simi (Kuruvoli) left the field it became more difficult for us, I think that Seta (Tuivucu) did very well but a lot of it went to Ben and we need to get that pressure off him with alternatives to our game.”
Cotter said the team was in high spirits after traveling from Dunedin to Auckland and then by bus to Hamilton where the Flying Fijians play their second Test against the Kiwis.
The three Fijian players who are stuck with fresh enforced lockdowns in Australia because of a recent spike in the Covid 19 infections are first choice halfbacks Frank Lomani and Mosese Sorovi and flyhalf Teti Tela.
Tailevu halfback Kuruvoli started at number nine last week and held his own against world’s top halfback Aaron Smith, spearheading attacks from set pieces and broken play from breakdowns which saw the All Blacks backpedalling often.
He combined well with Volavola and will have to dig deep in the distribution of balls with the backline and controlling territorial advantage with kicks from their half if named in the first XV.
Cotter said he was happy with the first Test match especially with the hurdles the team had to overcome getting together to play their first Test but had a few injury concerns that needed to be dealt with.
“We need to polish certain parts of our game, a lot of it is understandable, because it’s been a long time we haven’t played together and preparations was a little disjointed with players coming in and out of quarantine from Europe and the islands.
“And so we showed strong signs of strength and unity, they competed well, in the breakdown they competed well,” he said.
“In the set piece we ran out of steam in the last 20 minutes, so need to maintain and focused on playing at a high level so the players are aware of that.
“We need to look at ways at our defence at driven lineouts, where we took some soft tries from driven libeouts and generally we want to improve and strategically we ll be playing different bacuse we’ll be playing in Hamilton in wet conditions.
“Last week we were able to play counterattack and use the ball more often we may want to become more strategic in how we operate.”
Cotter said skipper Levani Botia had a swollen knee and had a a 50/50 chance to play this weekend and winger Eroni Sau was out because he had gone to Auckland to get his eye socket checked, he’s the only one unavailable this weekend.
“It’s a 50/50 he’s (Botia) got a knee strain, he’s going to have an MIR scan and see if he’s got any injuries to his ligaments, cartilage structurally, he twisted his knee in the game, if it’s minor the swelling will reduce and he will be able to take to the field for Saturday,” he said.
He said the team were monitoring other knocks and bruises which resulted from a fast and physical game for both teams.
Cotter said in response to the jersey that the team would be wearing with the ones assigned for the match with “Vaccinate Fiji” discarded, that there were discussions held currently and an announcement would be made later in the week.
Cotter said the team was not worried about the officiating because they had enough on their plate to worry about.
“No we’re just getting on with our stuff we have plenty to look after from our end,” he said.
“We’re positively looking to this week in Hamilton, with the second test against the All Blacks considering none of these players have played against the All Blacks, there now have another opportunity to test ourselves, so everyone is excited about that opportunity and the rest of it were not worried about, you can’t control those things but we can become better as individuals and as a team.”
Cotter said there were a lot of positive things the team did in slowing down the momentum of the New Zealand team.
“There was some very positive signs, we slowed the All Blacks down, they didn’t expect us to go undercover going in and disrupting and stealing ball and that was important to stopping the All Blacks flow, we need to again be better at that.
“Set piece we’re looking at, we’re winning lineout but we need to defend lineouts, we need to be perhaps more disciplined, we gave away penalties that cost us.
“But this is was a great game to measure ourselves and we’ve worked hard with not a lot of time but we know where we stand and specific parts of the game we need to work on and we had a good meeting this morning the players stood up and presented on areas to improve and the coaches were looking in detail in how to improve that to get another crack at the All Blacks.”
He said the team was recovering from been beaten up but recovering and looking where we need to be better in the weekend and looking to see if they got release of the halvebacks to come to New Zealand.
He said the Flying Fijians were targeting to play at the highest level, instead of feeding off scraps the team wanted to dominate in certain parts of the game so they can play on their own terms.
“We need to play that Fijian rugby but we need to have it on our terms as well,” he said.
“We need to get ourselves into situations where we can make line breaks get over the advantage line and see Levani botia carrying the ball and Eroni Sau play a very good game and we need to see the quality that Fijians players have and put them in the right positions and favourable conditions so we can really exploit it.
“This is part of the strategy and to need to do that we need to be solid in those set pieces, it’s non-negotiables in the modern game.”
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