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CLEAN CATCH: LS Jason Harrington is alone in the air to claim a clean line-out ball. Photo: CPL Rachel Ingram |
Volume 49, No. 18 , October 05, 2006
Razzle Dazzle ‘Em proved good but a tad belated advice from the Australian Rugby Choir for the fabulous Fijians in the Pacific Nations Military Rugby Tournament final in Canberra on September 16.
The razzle-dazzle rugby of The Republic of Fiji Military Forces had already swept all before them in the lead-up to the final and continued unabated in their 57-32 triumph against the Australian Services Rugby Union representative side, winner of the other pool.
By accident or design, one of the choir’s songs for half-time entertainment in the main game, Razzle Dazzle ‘Em (made famous in the recent movie musical Chicago) epitomised the Fijians’ magical running rugby.
With ball in hand, they attacked from all parts of the field, quickly from the breakdowns with improvisation and flair that none could match.
As the song says and the Fijians obligingly complied:
“Give ‘em the old razzle dazzle,
Razzle dazzle ‘em,
Give ‘em an act with lots of flash in it,
And the reaction will be
passionate,
Give ‘em a show that’s so
splendiferous,
Row after row will crow
vociferous.”
Not surprisingly Fiji had begun the tournament with a 114-0 win against Papua New Guinea – the same day Australia beat French Armed Forces New Caledonia 104-0 – but Fiji followed that up with a somewhat surprising 81-17 triumph over the New Zealand Defence Force.
In the final the score quickly blew out to 19-3 midway through the first half after two sparkling attacks from 10m inside their own territory which released the flying winger and Player of the Series Jona Nareki on lightning runs to the tryline.
Fiji led 33-11 at half-time and Australia held firm for a long period of the second half.
When looking for a pushover five-pointer from a ruck near the line, Australia was rewarded with a penalty try after a Fijian infringement and ABMED Harris added the extras to narrow the gap to 18-33.
But the tries simply continued to flow – three of them in a four-minute period for Fiji as they set their seal on the game with a 50-18 lead before a late rally produced two tries, both converted, to add some respectability to the Australian score.
“There are some big strong lads in there, including six internationals (including rugby sevens reps),” Australian coach CAPT Angus Baker said.
“We had to play a pretty structured game and I thought we did that in patches. I thought our set pieces were very good, our line-out was good, and our scrum was good which we dominated.
“In broken play they beat us a bit at the breakdown. Once you turnover the ball like that away they go.
“Our aim was to get into them early with our set pieces and get in behind them. We did that for about 10 minutes and then they went away with a couple of quick tries.
“After half-time they scored several quick tries and then we held them again for a time.”
The team had been assembled for only two weeks, drawing players from all over Australia, CAPT Baker said.
“A lot of guys came back from ops for this and have not played a lot of footy; to come this far is a superb effort.”
Better players for Australia were tight-head prop SPR Shaun Richardson, hooker ABCD Max Gunn, halfback CAPT Ricky Dumigan, fullback CPL James Hood and fly-half CPL Ben Jones until injured.
Fijian coach Thomas Mitchell was surprised by the high scores against Australia and New Zealand.
“Our objective in coming here was to win the tournament,” he said. “We did it in style but to be truthful we did not expect that.”
Coach Mitchell paid tribute to the Australian input to the Fijian game through CPO “Doc” Doherty, who has been attached to the Fijian Navy, in adding some structure and control in the open and “not just throwing the ball around”.
“Input into improving our pick and drives and second phase ball have all come from him.”
The hard-luck story of the tournament was that of the talented but unlucky Tonga Defence Services returning to this arena of rugby after a long break.
Against Australia, it troubled the host nation with its desire to play-on quickly and also produced a potent rolling maul.
But it negated that with infringements and a lack of discipline which left two players in the sin-bin at crucial times in their close and hard-fought 20-23 pool loss.
In the Shield Final for the pool second-placegetters, Tonga succumbed to New Zealand 18-17 with five seconds of the match to go.
Papua New Guinea and New Caledonia, hammered in their opening matches, showed steady improvement throughout and relished the drop in intensity when they played each other in the Plate Final for pool third placegetters.
PNG won 55-22.
