Outsiders Fiji will take a big scalp warns Bob Dwyer
The prediction that the newly crowned Pacific champions will take “one major scalp” comes from Bob Dwyer, Australia‘s head honcho when the Wallabies beat England 12-6 at the end of Europe’s first World Cup 24 years ago.
“Fiji are a serious threat,” Dwyer told The Rugby Paper from his home in Bowral, New South Wales. “They will knock off one of England, Wales or Australia in the pool competition.
“That’s how serious a threat they are.
“I don’t think they are capable of winning enough games to qualify for the last eight but they are capable of one big result. I think they’re going to take a major scalp and that will ensure that whoever they beat won’t get out of the pool. They’ve done it before and I can see them doing it again.
“Wales have been knocked out once by Fiji and twice by Samoa. Fiji would have beaten the New Zealand Maori, virtually a New Zealand A team, the other week if it hadn’t been for their giant wing from the Crusaders, Nemani Nodolo.”
Their rising status is reflected in the latest World Rugby rankings. Fiji, up to No.9 ahead of Tonga and behind Argentina, open the World Cup against England at Twickenham on September 18.
They then move to Cardiff for matches against Australia on September 23 and Wales eight days later.
While England have never lost to the South Sea Islanders, Wales have, with catastrophic consequences. Within 24 hours of Fiji knocking them out of the 2007 World Cup at Nantes, head coach Gareth Jenkins had been sacked on the spot.
Dwyer, whose distinguished coaching career included stints at Leicester and Bristol, considers this World Cup to be “perhaps the most open of all”. Speaking just before the All Blacks’ 41-13 blitz of Australia in Auckland yesterday, Dwyer went through the contenders.
He said: “Who is capable of winning it? England, Ireland, New Zealand and South Africa are all capable of winning it. Could Australia win it? You’d have to say No but I’d say they’ll make a very good account of themselves.
“Are Wales capable of winning it? I don’t think so because I’m not sure they can produce the four or five quality performances required in the space of a few weeks. They don’t have a track record of doing that.
“The team that can put a string of top performances together is Ireland. They are playing good footy, they are clearly very well coached and last year were very unlucky not to beat New Zealand.
“Until they lost at home to Argentina, you’d have thought South Africa were heading in the right direction and they still might be. Two things to bear in mind about the Springboks – they have a lot of players to come back from injury and they are very good at tournaments. We’ve seen on a number of occasions when the best team going into the World Cup hasn’t won it. What you can say about the Wallabies is that they are definitely moving in the right direction.
“In the past few weeks they’ve gone from ‘who are we going to pick’ to ‘who are we going to leave out?’
“They have a very good coaching staff in Michael Cheika, Stephen Larkham, Nathan Grey and Mario Ledesma. They are all straight-shooting blokes and that’s just the way the Australian players like it.”
PETER JACKSON
