The Counterweight Of History

Fiji beat Wales in the 2007 Rugby World Cup.

Did you know that? Presuming that you like rugby and can read English, you probably did. It's fairly common knowledge. In fact, it's absolutely ubiquitous knowledge. It's knowledge you couldn't really avoid, even if you'd never heard of rugby, and only spoke Inuktitut¹.

So here we are at the RWC2015 . A Wales team that was already held together by the sheer willpower of a phalanx of medical superheroes, before they withstood everything a desperate host nation could smash them with for 80 minutes, now has to face the Fijians again, just five days of muscle-rubs later.

Defeat to this decent-looking Fiji side is a very real possibility. Victory of any sort would be a notable achievement for Wales, in the circumstances. The bonus-point win that will in all likelihood be required to progress, is a pretty fanciful goal. Wales at the moment are like fine bone china, and Fiji are no mugs.

But so often has that RWC2007 result been raised in the media build-up to Thursday's game, you'd be forgiven for forgetting that Fiji's record against Wales is one win and one draw from ten attempts. Granted, those two positive results are at the recent end of the ledger. But few - very few - of the articles gleefully referencing Fiji's 38-34 victory, bother to include the caveat that when the teams met again, at RWC2011, Wales won 66-0.

That kind of scoreline is not going to happen this time, of course. It's history. More recent history than that famous Fiji win, though. And it probably carries equal relevance to Thursday, i.e. zero. Wales' backline is denuded but Fiji are also without arguably their two most dangerous backs; The mighty Nadolo, and maverick time-bomb Matawalu. Some stabilization of the set-piece, and a repeat of the composure and spirit shown at Twickenham should see Wales to a comfortable win.

Should they do it, regardless of the irritation of bonus points, P3 W3 will be a highly creditable position in the Group of Death. Then, whenever these two teams next meet, we'll have to read all about 2007 again. That'll be fine by us.



1. Oh, look it up!