Fiji surprise entry for WRWC

Can Fiji convert sevens success into fifteens?

Ten years ago Samoa and Fiji travelled to Tonga for the Pacific Women’s Rugby Championship. The vastly more experienced Samoan (fresh from beating Wales in the 2002 World Cup) ran out expected winners, comfortably beating the hosts but only slipping past the Fijians – playing their first test match – only 27-15.

It looked a promising start to the Fijiana’s test match career, especially after they followed that first match up with a 52-5 win over Tonga in their second game. Unfortunately, while Samoa went on from Nuku’alofa to take part in two more World Cups, this not only as this the start but it was also the end of Fiji’s experience of test match rugby. They entered the 2010 World Cup, but pulled out before the play-offs and have never played a test match since.

Until now.

This week, while eyes were on their rapidly improving sevens team as they flew to Sao Paulo for the next round of the World Series, the Fiji Times revealed that the island’s Women's Rugby Union has ambitions beyond the shorter game.

With New Zealand and Australia having already qualified for the next WRWC, Fiji’s unexpected interest in the World Cup may present World Rugby with an issue. They have aleady designed a qualification process which would see South Africa, two Asian teams and one team from Oceania meet at the end of this year to decide who the final team to qualify for Ireland 2017 will be. That Oceanian team was due to be Samoa, but now it seems that they might have come up with to other plan – a Pacific Islands playoff perhaps.

Former Fiji Women's Rugby Union president Paulini Tamatasasa has also been helping out in training for the squad and told Fiji Times that 60 players had been selected from a trial held last year to be part of the Daily Training Exercise program (DTE), all with the target of being on the plane to Dublin in 18 months’ time.

Getting the players together is a challenge for their sevens squad, and it is obviously an even bigger problem for the fifteens. "Of the 60 players, about 40 players are from the Eastern Zone and the rest are from the West, however we have only been seeing players from the Mystic Knights and Central Chiefs training here at Suva," Tamatasasa said.

Sevens has raised the profile of women’s rugby in the islands, and Tamatasasa said this is another good opportunity for women ruggers to don the national jumper if they have missed out in the sevens selection.

"Not everyone can make the sevens team to the Olympics, they have their core squad and this is a good opportunity for other players to be in the national team. It is definitely good for the players because they would be able to showcase their talent and we hope to see players who have been named to continue with the DTE program.”