Fiji finding balance between the basic and the brilliant

Head coach Mick Byrne has named the 'best team available' to him.

Fiji's Waisea Nayacalevu Vuidravuwalu performing the Cibi war dance before the Autumn international match at Principality Stadium.

There had to be an Irish connection. With a name like Mick Byrne, there just had to be.

“It’s Mick Gerard Byrne, so it goes a little bit deeper than that,” the Fiji head coach explained before Saturday’s date in Dublin. “I think we might be out of Wicklow, some relatives down there. Definitely got deep heritage in Ireland.” 

A season part-spent as Leinster’s kicking coach just over 20 years ago provides another thread but this is a born and bred Aussie with a story far more eclectic and global given he played both rugby league and Aussie Rules before moving into union.

That knowledge has been seamed into a career that has included 10 years as skills coach with the All Blacks, another five with the Wallabies, as well as stints with Scotland and Japan before he hooked up with the Fijian Drua and now the national side.

Known as ‘Mick the Kick’, his guidance of a side renowned and loved for its power and sublime running game started last April and they have already claimed a Pacific Nations Cup and claimed a first ever win in Cardiff against Wales.

“Look, it's been great for me personally. I am living in Fiji full-time. I have been accepted there and brought into families. It's just a great lifestyle. It enriches my life every day of the week.

“In the teams I have coached in the past, you sort of take the players to the side and teach them a little bit of offloading, we don't have to teach that there! It's a different level of coaching.

“The growth for us is our ability to curb our enthusiasm to throw the ball away and just get in there and clean out, be strong over the ball and take pride in our breakdown skills and our ball presentation.

"That growth has been significant over the last six months. The boys are really taking pride in recycling and presenting the ball, which is great for us.” 

Fiji were hammered 57-17 by Scotland at the start of the month but that was a game held outside the Test window and their abilities were better gauged two weeks ago when, with ten players coming in to camp, they accounted for the Welsh.

That’s not the boast it once was, of course. A much-changed, weaker, side had to come from behind to beat Spain in Madrid last week too but there isn’t any doubt that the longer this side works together the better they will get.

“We’ll definitely be in better shape than we were in the Wales week.” Byrne has the services here of some elite talent. Josua Tuisova and Waisea Nayacalevu form an intimidating midfield and the dependable Caleb Muntz goes again at out-half, while loosehead Eroni Mawi plays with Saracens.

The Australian has described it as the best team available to them.

There was a time, he explained, when Fiji were better served by just focusing on themselves but to be a ‘Tier 1’ team requires more now, especially with the likelihood that Fiji will be in that company when the new Nations Cup competition kicks off down the line.

That in mind, their take on Ireland is interesting. Scrum-half Frank Lomani spoke of a “vulnerable” Ireland earlier in the week after the difficulties the Six Nations champions have experienced in losing to New Zealand and beating Argentina.

Byrne framed that in the context of a Kiwi team that, like Australia, has made serious in-roads in development on this tour and its through that prism, rather than Ireland’s efforts, that he has framed this opposition’s month to date.

“I thought Argentina were passionate and defended really well. There was a lot of scrambling. Ireland asked a lot of questions of Argentina and they answered a lot of them. Argentina were in good form and Ireland did enough to win.

“So they’re primed for this weekend and we have to be ready for them. I think you know Andy (Farrell) wasn’t happy. Publicly he wants to see a big improvement. So we have to be ready for that.”