Wales earn bonus-point win through Elliot Dee and hold off Fiji fightback
Wales 32-26 FijiFiji drop chance at very end to pull off comebackAn extraordinary match that so nearly had a denouement to die for, Fiji fitter than they have ever been, stretching Wales to the very end, only for Semi Radradra to spill a bouncing ball with the line at his mercy, the clock in the red. What a comeback it would have been, Fiji down by 18 points with 14 to go. And popular. How popular. In the end, Wales’s nous, so used to an old-world status in rugby terms well above that of Fiji, saw them through. They have suffered their own trials of late, finding themselves three places below the Islanders in the world rankings, but their four tries left Fiji with just too much to make up.These days it’s hard to know how seriously to take those rankings. On Saturday we had seen the eighth-ranked team dismantle the sixth, despite playing almost the whole match with 14 men. Here we had the unfamiliar concept of Fiji, in seventh, lording it over multiple “Tier 1” teams, including the opposition, Wales, in 10th. Continue reading...
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- Wales 32-26 Fiji
- Fiji drop chance at very end to pull off comeback
An extraordinary match that so nearly had a denouement to die for, Fiji fitter than they have ever been, stretching Wales to the very end, only for Semi Radradra to spill a bouncing ball with the line at his mercy, the clock in the red. What a comeback it would have been, Fiji down by 18 points with 14 to go. And popular. How popular. In the end, Wales’s nous, so used to an old-world status in rugby terms well above that of Fiji, saw them through. They have suffered their own trials of late, finding themselves three places below the Islanders in the world rankings, but their four tries left Fiji with just too much to make up.
These days it’s hard to know how seriously to take those rankings. On Saturday we had seen the eighth-ranked team dismantle the sixth, despite playing almost the whole match with 14 men. Here we had the unfamiliar concept of Fiji, in seventh, lording it over multiple “Tier 1” teams, including the opposition, Wales, in 10th.
Continue reading...
