The Flying Fijians' grand plan that toppled England: 'Just play like a Fijian'

Fiji celebrated one of their greatest-ever achievements on a rugby field over the weekend, dropping England in spectacular fashion at one of rugby’s great cathedrals, Twickenham.

The win was the first time a Pacific nation has toppled the English, while lifting the Fijians above England in World Rugby’s rankings.

It’s never easy for Fiji and the second-tier nations to compete with the better-funded and better-established teams, but this win reminds the world just what can be achieved when a team with talent has the opportunity to train together for an extended period.

Outside of World Cup years, the Flying Fijians are only able to get together for brief intervals.

“This is our eighth, going into our ninth week together and just that time’s been incredible,” Fiji assistant coach Daryl Gibson told SENZ Breakfast.

“I’ve been with the team four years, and we get July and November, three weeks in July and three weeks in November.

“So we’ve been hanging out for this moment where we get the boys together for an extended period of time.”

A demanding training camp over that period has pushed the players’ fitness to the heights needed to compete with tier-one teams. A team trip to the outer islands gave the players a chance to connect and train as a team while reconnecting with the culture and people they represent after long club seasons overseas.

A huge advantage Fiji have in this campaign compared to those previous is the development of the Fijian Drua in Super Rugby Pacific.

“Obviously the Drua are second-year professionals now, and I think again it just highlights if you give the boys the right environment where they can train and be as professional as they can, what you can do. They’ve proven they can make it.

“That two-year period has really closed the gap. Previously, we’d get our boys back from Europe who are all in professional clubs and they would be at a much higher level than our boys from the islands. That’s changed now.

“The Drua boys approach the game professionally, they’ve trained professionally, they know what it’s about.

“That goes to making us a stronger squad and given the time we now have with them, you can actually see that they’re improving every day.”

Time is not always a friend to the Pacific nation teams, neither is game time.

Prior to the weekend’s clash against Ireland, Manu Samoa had played just 14 Test matches since the last Rugby World Cup in 2019, and only one of those was against a tier-one nation in Italy.

Compare that to England who have played 13 Tests in the last nine months alone.

More opportunity to play high-level games is essential in the development of the Pacific teams, but that doesn’t mean adopting the more conservative tier-one style of play.

“We’ve all got our different strategies, we’re certainly approaching it that we want to play a style of game that is uniquely Fijian. We want to retain that identity and not turn the boys into a clone of a tier-one nation.

“We’re really, really careful around making sure that all those things are retained and encouraged.

“I know it sounds funny but one of our things that we say to the boys all the time is ‘just play like a Fijian, go out there and have fun, keep a smile on your face and we’ll see where that gets us.’

“If you look at Samoa and Tonga, they approach the game in a similar way. Their DNA is typically thicker, physical, big contacts, big collisions.

“You can see the game at the moment is being dominated by big teams, big collisions, and the team that wins that, at the moment is dominating rugby.

“So, I think it’s going to be a fascinating World Cup in terms of what style comes through and actually wins.”