The first professional team on the Pacific islands’ smashing second season will only benefit World Cup quarter-finalists
ortugal, who beat them, might think otherwise, but the story of the pool stages of this World Cup has been the arrival of Fiji as a contender among the big nations. Rugby still unashamedly distinguishes between its tier-one nations and tier two. Fiji, as they were in 2007, are this edition’s tier-two interlopers among the quarter-final elite,This time they mean to stay.
These Atlantic islands may not boast the playing talent of those of the Pacific, but they turn out their fair share of administrators. One of the best of them, Mark Evans, has been chief executive of the Drua for the past year. He has long insisted that the full effect will not work through until the 2027 World Cup.“I stand by that,” he says from under a lazy ceiling fan in Nadi, clad in Fijian Drua garb. “The age profile of the current squad is quite interesting.
Evans, brought up in Wales, has been completely seduced by Fiji’s passion for the sport. He attended the narrow, controversial defeat by Wales in Bordeaux, fully decked out in Drua regalia, unapologetically supporting them over the land of his fathers. Half the population of Fiji, he proudly relates, about half a million, tune in for the Drua’s home games.
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