MARSEILLE (AFP) – Fiji captain Waisea Nayacalevu said his country will be carrying the hopes of an entire region when they look to make history against England at the World Cup in Marseille tonight.
The Flying Fijians are playing in the quarter-finals for just the third time.
They are one of only three Tier II teams to have reached this stage of the competition – Samoa in 1991 and 1995, and Japan in 2019 – but none of them have ever been beyond that.
“We want to make history,” said Nayacalevu. “We have a lot of support from neighbouring countries so we’re representing all the South Pacific.” It is not just the Pacific nations Samoa and Tonga cheering on Fiji, but all Tier II nations, said head coach Simon Raiwalui, who has become something of a global spokesman for those without a place at rugby’s top table.
“I’m proud to be Fijian but I’m also proud of the so-called developing nations, really pushing for the global game, how we improve it, create opportunities, how we break that barrier down,” he said.
“This World Cup has been a fantastic example of other teams coming in… and playing fantastic rugby and putting on a spectacle for the world.”
In Fiji, the excitement has been building ahead of this match, with fans going to extraordinary lengths to watch their matches in the early hours of the morning.
“We understand how hard outside the cities it is to get to watch the matches,” said Raiwalui.
“We’ve seen videos of people out in the boat or up on the hills just finding sources where they can get electricity, where they can get Wi-Fi just to watch the game.
“We understand how much it means to them, we appreciate every supporter that we have and we just want to do the country proud”.
