Pacific Nations Cup Tonga Week Diary

The Vodafone Flying Fijians arrived safely in Tonga yesterday and received an overwhelming reception at the Airport.

More than fifty members of the Fijian community sang Fijian songs, cheered and waved Fiji flags as they greeted the team upon their arrival.

As the team left the airport in their team bus, they were led by an entourage of Fijian fans in their vehicles, waving Fiji flags out the window and tooting their horns all the way to the team hotel.  The locals also joined in by waving from the roadside and their homes with placards saying “Welcome to Tonga”.

While it was a friendly welcome for the team, it was down to business after they checked in, as they hit the pool straightaway for a recovery session.

Today the team had a light training session at the Latter Day Saints Liahona High School grounds and had the afternoon off for team review.

Vodafone Flying Fijians Coach, John McKee says that Tonga will bring a very physical game up against the team on Saturday so the team will be preparing for that and that the team needs to keep their heads clear about the way they want to play the game.

“We need to be very strong in defence to withstand their attacks as they will be using their pick and go and their mauls and withstand their pressure.”

“We’ve been working this week on getting in very early to stop their maul.  We know even with their maul set up we can stop their momentum and on two occasions the referee will ask the opposition to play the ball so we will be looking to be very strong there to initially stop their maul and try to get our hands on the ball so they can’t turn the ball when there are turnovers.”

The team will continue with their training sessions tomorrow before their Captain’s run on Friday.