Wales slumped to a 16-16 draw against Fiji at the Millennium Stadium on Friday as their winless streak extended to six games.
A penalty try awarded after just before the hour-mark looked to have proved the difference and Wales looked set to claim a much-needed triumph, but Seremaia Bai landed a stoppage-time penalty to clinch a draw at the death and leave Wales’ autumn campaign in tatters after three losses and the visit of New Zealand in a week.
The Dragons have not tasted victory since the 33-10 Six Nations victory over Italy in March and carried the painful memories of their 2007 World Cup exit at the hands of Fiji into the game. On that sunny day in Nantes, Wales were sucked into playing Fiji at their own game.
PHOTO: REUTERS
“It is pretty disappointing,” Wales coach Warren Gatland said. “We were let down by our accuracy, turnovers, penalties, our lineout didn’t function and we probably kicked the ball when we should have kept it, and kept it when we should have kicked it. It was a game we should have won had we keep our patience and composure. After 50-60 minutes, every time the clock stopped a string of Fijians would go down.”
“The disappointing thing is we made a number of changes wanting to see what depth we had and perhaps it’s not as deep as we thought,” he said. “We felt we really stepped up in the first couple of weeks and improved, but it wasn’t there tonight. We weren’t strong enough at the break down and there weren’t enough turnovers.”
In the build-up to the clash all the talk in the Welsh camp was about the importance of securing a triumph and playing intelligent rugby, but all that went out of the window in a loose and error-strewn encounter as Wales fell into the same trap.
The introduction of four second-half replacements for Wales appeared to turn the game and secure a win after Fiji had first surged into a 13-6 halftime lead thanks to Albert Vulivuli, but Bai’s stoppage-time penalty broke Welsh hearts as Fiji shared the spoils in Cardiff.
Dan Biggar landed the first points of the game with a well-struck penalty just moments after Bai hit the post with an early shot at goal. Biggar added a second on 22 minutes, before Josh Matavesi responded, with Bai in the sin bin for an earlier dangerous tackle.
Wales were the first to threaten with a try when James Hook and Andrew Bishop combined to put Aled Brew into space, but the powerful wing was tackled just before he could return the ball to Hook to score.
The South Sea islanders were the first to touch-down thanks to Vulivuli.
Sisa Koyamaibole, who caused Wales so many problems in 2007, made the initial break off the back of a lineout. The big No. 8 was eventually hauled down by last week’s hero George North and Biggar, but the ball was recycled and spread wide to the Racing Metro 92 center, who crashed through Hook to score. Bai converted to give the visitors a 13-6 lead.
The scores remained the same for 10 minutes before Gatland made wholesale changes, introducing four of his big-guns in Bradley Davies, Mike Phillips, Stephen Jones and Tom Shanklin.
They almost had an immediate impact when Lee Byrne looked to have scored. Wales went through several phases attacking the Fiji line, before the ball was spread to Byrne. He ignored the unmarked North outside him and looked to have scored, only for official Daniel Gillet to rule out the effort.
Wales showed their power in the resulting scrum and were awarded a penalty try on 58 minutes after nine scrum resets.
Jones added the extras from in front of the posts to pull his side level at 13-13 and just minutes later he gave Wales the lead with a simple penalty, but Bai struck with the final kick of the game to earn a draw for the visitors.
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