Fiji coach Vern Cotter’s frustration was less evident in tone but unmistakable in the content of his comments when discussing a couple of incidents during the team’s 35-17 defeat to Ireland at the Aviva Stadium.
The first bugbear was the red card which flanker Albert Tuisue for a high shot to the jawline of Irish outhalf Joey Carbery on 46 minutes. Fijians number eight Bill Mata had already made the tackle when Tuisue decided to pursue a shoulder led lunge into contact. It was ill-judged, dangerous, and unnecessary.
Carbery crumpled to the turf and after prolonged attention was able to jog off for a Head Injury Assessment (HIA) but never returned. It was the second match in succession against the Fijians that he ended up brutalised physically; on the last occasion, in 2017 he suffered a broken arm.
Television match official Chris Hart drew the attention of the referee Mathieu Raynal to the incident, and after reviewing it, the French official correctly adjudicated that it warranted a red card. Well, that might have been a consensus, but Cotter, for one, didn’t agree. Fiji lost two players to yellow cards, Manasa Saulo and Api Ratuniyarawa and Tuisue to a red one.
And in some respects, the New Zealander’s view sums up a conflict when it comes to the northern and southern hemisphere and what is acceptable in tackle/contact. Cotter said: “Was there foul play? What’s the question? Is there a head? I don’t know.
“There is a meeting after this series about the state of the game and we need to sit down and talk about it, people around rugby need to sit down and talk about what’s best. At the moment, it’s tough.”
A 20-minute red card has been trialled south of the equator and Cotter was asked if he would favour that form of punishment. He continued: “It is probably not the right place to bring it out in the media. There are certain frustrations around ... all of us have said ever since we were involved in the game is [that we want] consistency, be really consistent.
“We get a call, 50/50 of a guy [Ireland fullback Jimmy O’Brien] who is using his knees on the ground. It is either 50 right or 50 wrong. It is not 50-50. He didn’t or he did. There is a bit of frustration around that but hopefully things can get sorted out reasonably soon.”
On a more positive note, Fiji scored the best tries of the match, brilliant sweeping counterattacks that showcased their athleticism, flair, and dexterity. Cotter admitted: “I am really happy with the way that we started, we got seven points up, but we sort of didn’t push on. We could have built on that lead.
“We had a couple of important lineout plays that we fumbled and put the ball down. If we had strung those together we would have applied more pressure and that’s something we need to learn to do, not just be satisfied with seven points but to build on top of it.
“So that is something that we have come away from the last two games with; obviously we will talk about the character of the guys digging in when we were down to 13 players. It could have been a very bad day for us.
“The character in defending mauls and being down to 13 is tough in international rugby especially when you are playing the top team in the world. They were positives. We wanted to take things away from these two games against Scotland and you boys, Ireland.
“We would like to have done a lot better. We are disappointed with the score. We have high expectations and high standards, so we will build towards that. We have another game next week to try and put that in place.
On Fiji’s two tries scored by centre Kalaveti Ravouvou and replacement scrumhalf Simione Kuruvoli, Cotter smiled “We are better running out of your half than kicking, aren’t we? We might as well start running a bit more. We can’t do the same thing over and over again.
“The fact that we were able to alternate between kicking and playing is something we need to develop, to be smarter in how we use the ball. But when we got a bit of free space the boys worked hard, which is good.”
