Japan beats Fiji to win first ever Pacific Nations Cup
International Rugby Board (IRB) Pacific Nations Cup (PNC) narrowed down to the final four contenders namely; Samoa, Tonga, Fiji and Japan. Today, Japan has emerged out successfully as the title winner of Pacific Nations Cup, making history with a convincing
win of 24-13 in Lautoka, against their host Fiji.
This is Japan’s very first PNC title in 17 years.
Japan was scheduled to meet Fiji whereas the Tonga battled against Samoa and all teams have had won matches once in their previous two encounters already. Tonga was ahead of its rivals and if it had managed to win against Samoa in their final clash on Wednesday,
July 13, this would have been Tonga’s very first PNC title just like Japan’s.
Samiu Vahafolau, the Tongan skipper acknowledged the fact that Samoans always give a tough competition to their opponents and stated, “It will be hard and it is always hard to play Samoa.”
He further added, realising their strong position against Samoa, “We are first looking at winning the game and if the bonus point comes, we will be happy with that. However, we need to improve a lot from the Japan game as we were too slow to react and that
gave Japan a chance to outplay us.”
Tonga was anticipating bagging the PNC title winner for the very first time. The squad was pushing to its limits, under the cautious eye of the new coach Isitolo Maka and his assistant Toutai Kefu. Earlier on, Tonga faced a defeat against Japan in a tight
match of 28-27.
Although Tonga and Japan had both wound up the tournament with the equal score of 10, Japan’s win over Tonga 28-27, brought the title under Japan’s belt.
Japan’s match-winning tries by Go Aruga, Shota Horie, Ryan Nicholas and Yuta Imamura along with two Shaun Webb’s conversions kicks are the highlight of the final clash which swept Japan to the title.
Lack of discipline cost Fiji heavily which left only 13 players on field with penalty toll high. Referee Peter Fitzgibbon flashed red cards to Seru Rabeni and Sisa Koyamaibole. Also, yellow cards were handed in to Dominiko Waqaniburotu, Bai and Wise Luveniyali.
However, it would not be wrong to say that Fiji’s “indiscipline” paved way for Japan to the PNC title for the very first time as confirmed by the Japan’s coach, John Kirwan while talking to a Japanese website.
He further added, “We knew Fiji would be a physical team but in the first half we did not play to our game plan. We did not hit enough rucks. So I told the players at halftime that we had to hang onto the ball longer, set up multiple rucks and create a good
platform.”
It was further added by Kirwan, that team had worked hard to bag the IRB PNC title.
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