Rugby World Cup
Ignominious past against Pacific Islands teams looms over Wales
Huw Richards
October 1, 2015
Wales prepare for Fiji test

After the euphoria comes the exorcism. When Wales run out at the Millennium Stadium on Thursday evening, they'll be playing not just Fiji, their own injuries and a five-day turnaround, but history. Warren Gatland's selection of what looks the strongest team available indicates the importance of the match, and the extent of the challenge.

Never mind the two semi-final appearances. The outstanding feature of Wales's World Cup history is that eight-yearly cycle - 1991, 1999, 2007 - of humiliation by South Sea islanders. You don't have to be terribly numerate to work out that the logical next number in that sequence is 2015.

Not much of a return, you might think, for the encouragement Wales has given to rugby in the Pacific Islands, a small exception to the generally unimpressive record of the Foundation unions (France apart) as missionaries for the game. Wales were the first European nation to host Fiji, as long ago as 1964, the earliest (with Scotland) to entertain Tonga, in 1973, and the first Foundation nation to play Samoa, in Apia in 1986.

There is a rapport with Fiji in particular which dates back to that first tour in 1964, when the Fijians ran a Wales team destined to win that season's Five Nations ragged, going down 28-22 but scoring six tries in the process.

In 1973 they launched Swansea's centenary celebrations by beating a very decent team of All Whites - Mervyn Davies, Geoff Wheel, Trevor Evans, Dai Richards and all - 31-0, then impressed one of Wales's great choirs, Morriston Orpheus, with the quality of their singing.

They'll be greeted warmly but warily on Thursday. It isn't only history which has earned them respect, but evidence from their opening games that they have upped their forward game and, even without suspended wing Nemani Nadolo and injured scrum-half Niko Matavalu, will threaten with ball in hand.

They're also entitled to a sense of grievance. After the short turnaround between their first two matches, they now face a second away match. But while patently unfair, this may not work to Fiji's disadvantage.

© Simon Bruty/Allsport

Wales's World Cup record against the Pacific islands is an inversion of home advantage rivalled only by results over recent decades against Ireland. When World Cups are played in the northern hemisphere, they are 0-3 against the islanders. Defeats came against Samoa in 1991 (Cardiff) and 1999 (Cardiff again), followed by Fiji in 2007 (Nantes, which is twinned with Cardiff, hence the Boulevard de Nantes between Cathays Park and the city centre).

Can Wales survive Fijian strength?
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Down under they are 4-0. Tonga were beaten in 1987 (Palmerston North) and 2003 (Canberra), then Samoa and Fiji in 2011 (both Hamilton). Only the Fijian match was a breeze - in 2003 the Tongans scored three tries to two and, playing on a short turnaround, were among the conspicuous victims of a tournament schedule which systematically discriminated against the smaller nations. The 1987 match is remembered - except by the scorer, who was clearly concussed and might just as easily have run the other way - for a spectacular long-range try by Glen Webbe. If Wales really wanted an advantage on Thursday, they should have asked to play in New Zealand.

So can Wales break the pattern? Whatever the physical and emotional toll of the victory over England, this is a much better Wales team than those of 1991 and 2007. In 1991, Wales were close to an all-time low, only a few months on from conceding 134 points over two weekends in Australia. The 2007 team was the ultimate proof that 'So long as we beat the English we don't care' is nonsense, defeating the ancestral enemy to avert a Six Nations whitewash the only real achievement that year.

Those early World Cup exits were also the medium-term consequence of sacking excellent coaches -- Tony Gray in 1988 and Mike Ruddock in 2006.

The more worrying precedent is 1999. Wales were on a high after a run of victories under Graham Henry, and the Samoan scrummage had been exposed in one of the great forgotten World Cup matches, giving up a 13-point lead against Argentina at Llanelli.

Wales outscrummaged them, claiming two penalty tries, but Samoa ran them off the park to win 38-31. It was the end of Henry's honeymoon period, not least since Samoans who had played for -- and against -- his Auckland teams said they knew what to expect from Wales.

© Warren Little/Getty Images

Wales, thanks to that Argentinian victory, still qualified, before being reduced to baffled quarter-final impotence by the watertight defence of an Australian team destined to take the trophy.

Warburton: We will need to be at our best to beat Fiji
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Qualification is what Thursday night is all about. So while winning is the main thing, it is not, inverting Vince Lombardi's famed dictum, the only thing. A bonus point might be the difference between qualification and elimination should England (as they tend to do at Twickenham) beat Australia on Saturday, and the Wallabies (as they habitually do) overcome Wales next week.

And getting the bonus will be very tough. Fiji are not Uruguay, with all due respect to the punching-way-above-their-weight South Americans. Beating them is challenge enough in itself. Scoring four tries would be precisely what the tournament points system says it is, a bonus.

It will take calm and calculated judgment. Keep it too tight and the bonus may be impossible to achieve. Open up too loosely or too soon and a repetition of Nantes, where Fiji ran amok from Welsh errors to build a 25-3 lead, is far from impossible.

The order of priority is clear -- win, chase the bonus if possible and then pray, out of sheer self-interest, for an Australian win on Saturday night. The last thing Wales want is to have to beat Australia to progress. Exorcising a jinx is one thing, defeating an opponent which has done you 10 times running quite another.

© Huw Richards

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