Fiji battled from behind to beat Asian champions Japan 24-12 yesterday to chalk up their second win after three matches in the Pacific Nations Cup.
Fiji, who narrowly lost to New Zealand Maori 11-7 at home a week ago, trailed Japan 9-3 at halftime, but scored three converted tries in the second half in driving rain at the National Stadium.
“We always knew it was going to be tough playing Japan in Japan,” Fiji coach Ilivasi Tabua said. “It was not until the final 15 minutes that the game changed.”
Disappointed Japan coach and All Blacks legend John Kirwan said: “We had ample opportunity to win today, but threw the game away with errors.”
Japan’s starting 15, unchanged from the side that beat Tonga 35-13 last week, opened the scoring against a disorganized Fiji in the fifth minute with a penalty goal by James Arlidge.
Taniela Rawaqa leveled the scores with a penalty six minutes later, but the Brave Blossoms went ahead with two more penalty goals by Arlidge, who missed a third attempt a minute before the break.
“We told the boys at halftime to play in their territory and make Japan make mistakes and score from them and we did,” Tabua said.
Fiji started to click in the second half, with Sireli Naqelevuki making the most of a handling error by Japan fullback Shaun Webb to run in their first try in the 50th minute, with two more coming through Rawaqa and Vereniki Goneva.
Arlidge restored Japan’s lead in the 54th minute with his fourth penalty, taking the score to 12-10.
But it was his error that led to Fiji’s second try two minutes later when he scuffed his kick so badly it hit one of his teammates and from the resulting scrum, Rawaqa crossed the line.
Goneva touched down with two minutes to go, with Rawaqa scoring his third conversion.
It was the eighth win for Fiji over Japan in their 10 meetings.
In their previous encounter, Fiji struggled past the Blossoms 35-31 in Toulouse, in what was regarded by many as one of the best games of last year’s Rugby World Cup.
Japan will face New Zealand Maori in Napier next weekend in their first match on the road.
Fiji face tournament leaders Australia A away in Brisbane.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier