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Nakarawa isn't bothered about Wallabies' adopted Fijians

Fiji's Leone Nakarawa has still to return to France following the World Cup

Lock Leone Nakarawa insists he is not “bothered” about facing four Fijian born players who will be lining up for Australia when the two countries clash in the Rugby World Cup in Japan.

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The Fijian born quartet of Isi Naisarani, Samu Kerevi. Marika Koroibete and Tevita Kuridrani are  likely to be in the Wallabies team against Fiji a the Sapporo Dome on September 21 and Nakarawa recognises it could be an unwanted distraction.

However, the Racing 92 lock who won a  Sevens gold medal at the Rio Olympics, told the FijiSun: “Other Fijians play for other countries for their own personal reasons. We don’t want to think or are bothered about them. We want to focus on what we can do and tasked to achieve at the World Cup.

“The first game is very important and fans expect good performance from the team. It is up to us to work hard and we are the ones who have been picked for the RWC. All of us have to work hard. We need to have the mindset and the team will move on from there. Nothing is impossible.

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“I always say that we believe in one God who is the creator and we Fijians know that. We start small and grow up and we believe in one God and it is possible to beat Australia. We have the individual talents but this is the team game so everyone should prepare well. for the next two weeks. There were some issues with the lineouts and scrums but there is time to polish on that. We need to learn our own roles and master what we can do best.”

The World Cup serves as a reminder of the number of Pacific Islanders who have qualified for other nations with World Rugby being constantly asked to deliver more financial help to keep talent at home. Fiji have been drawn in the same pool as Wales and Australia with just two teams going through to the knock-out stages this could become one of the most fascinating groups in the tournament.

Fiji head coach John McKee has managed to assemble arguably the most powerful Fijian squad to arrive at a World Cup but the number of players in opposition squads will continue to be a major topic of conversation during the tournament.

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Fiji are already at their Japan base in Akita City and have been joined by Fiji Sevens coach Gareth Baber who is looking for potential training bases leading into next year’s Olympic Games. Fiji won the Sevens gold in Rio and are the current HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series champions.

 

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J
JW 4 hours ago
'Let's not sugarcoat it': Former All Black's urgent call to protect eligibility rules

Yep, no one knows what will happen. Thing is I think (this is me arguing a point here not a random debate with this one) they're better off trialing it now in a controlled environment than waiting to open it up in a knee jerk style reaction to a crumbling organtization and team. They can always stop it again.


The principle idea is that why would players leave just because the door is ajar?


BBBR decides to go but is not good enough to retain the jersey after doing it. NZ no longer need to do what I suggest by paying him to get back upto speed. That is solely a concept of a body that needs to do what I call pick and stick wth players. NZR can't hold onto everyone so they have to choose their BBBRs and if that player comes back from a sabbatical under par it's a priority to get him upto speed as fast as possible because half of his competition has been let go overseas because they can't hold onto them all. Changing eligibility removes that dilemma, if a BBBR isn't playing well you can be assured that someone else is (well the idea is that you can be more assured than if you only selected from domestic players).


So if someone decides they want to go overseas, they better do it with an org than is going to help improve them, otherwise theyre still basically as ineligible as if they would have been scorning a NZ Super side that would have given them the best chance to be an All Black.

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