Savou's woes

Fiji Times - Sunday, February 10, 2008 7:35 PM

IT was heartbreak for the thousands of Fijian fans who gathered at Petco Park in San Diego and the rest of the country here as Fiji slumped to a 21-17 loss to Samoa today.

The defending champs had earlier notched up a 26-7 and 66-7 win against Australia and West Indies.

This relegated the Digicel Fiji side to a match up against rivals to New Zealand in the first quarter-final tomorrow morning back and shocked the Fijians who were poor at ball retention from kick-offs in the second spell.

Samoa retained the kick off four times in the second spell and this
resulted in three tries which gave our Pacific rivals the win.

Fiji coach Josateki Savou said the side lost the match at ball retention areas and this was the major downfall for the side.

"We started very well and this was after a long time that we did that," Savou said.

"However in the second half, there were four kick offs which Samoa retained and managed to score three tries.

"That is a case for concern and we have spoken to the players about it as ball retention is very important."

While many have already written Fiji's chances of beating New Zealand, Savou is confident will not give up the title easily.

"We will not give up easily and the players know of what they need to do," he said.

"We don't want to be known as a beaten team but we want to show that this team does have it."

Fiji had a lot of problems at goal kicking and this was the reason for
the defeat to Samoa last weekend in Wellington and again today.

It is not a new problem as the team management highlighted the problem at the start of the series in Dubai and George last December.

With the series on the half way stage, Fiji still is having problems
landing conversions which are very vital in modern era.

"We are concerned about goal kicking," Savou said.

"While general kick offs are okay, we must get the goal kicks on
target."

The team management will before kick off decide if nippy halfback Emosi Vucago will be fit to start.

He got a knock on his knee in the match against Australia and was
replaced by young Tomasi Mawi.

"We will assess him just before the match," Savou said.

"Tomasi is a good young player and he did well in the matches he
played."

New Zealand mentor Gordon Tietjens said his side which didn't concede any points on day one knew Fiji would be tough despite the loss.

"I don't really think about the records much but someone reminded me this week and if we can win the rest of our matches we'll go past the 35 unbeaten [achieved in 2002 by NZ] but for now we're just looking at playing a quarter final against Fiji," Tietjens said.

The quarter-final draws:
7.28am, Fiji-NZ; 7.50, England-Kenya; 8.12, Argentina-South Africa 8.34, Samoa-Scotland