Defence Coach confident of a good outing

Former Flying Fijians captain and Fijiana 15s defence Coach Mosese Rauluni says nothing is impossible as they prepare for their maiden Rugby World Cup opener against England at Eden Park in Auckland, New Zealand on Saturday.

Rauluni said that playing world’s number three ranked Canada side in their Test clash was a big boost as it gave the girls the much-needed exposure. The Fijians held Canada 0-0 at halftime before they ran away with a 24-7 win.

“Playing against Canada gave us a bit of confidence to say that the England girls are really human. England will be a tough task but anything is possible,” Rauluni said.

He added that the team is working hard in strengthening their defence. Rauluni captained the Flying Fijians to the 2007 Rugby World Cup in France. They shocked the rugby world with a 38-34 win over Wales in their final pool match to qualify for the quarterfinals on merit. Rauluni led his men to hold RWC eventual winners South Africa 20-20 midway in the second half after they fought back from a 20-6 deficit before bowing out 34-20 in the end.

“We have got plans for the sessions this week and we are really getting used to the wind, rain and obviously the softer fields.

“There are still a lot of areas to that we have to be better in our defence which we will be working on for the next two weeks before meeting England.

“We should get better in our defence because England is a different team so we will work a lot on defence, attack and obviously set piece.

“We have got a lot of time, we have two weeks and we will work on it and fix up the areas where we could have probably failed” said Rauluni.

Fijiana takes on England at 3.45pm (Fiji time).