Don’t rely on statistics, players told

The Vodafone Fijian Bati should not be relying on their 2017 Rugby League World Cup (RLWC) table topping team statistics as a morale booster, to Saturday’s quarterfinal clash against New Zealand. Fiji National Rugby League (FNRL) chief executive officer Timoci Naleba said yesterday that despite scoring the most tries, most conversions and points, players and fans should be considering the type of opponents they met on their way to the quarterfinals. “What we need to consider is the opponents and the pools that New Zealand is in and Fiji’s opponents. Although Fiji may look impressive in terms of points but what we could actually realistically look at is the capacity of each player and how they play the game on the day,” Naleba said.

“New Zealand is a highly structured team and are very systematic in the way they play, but for Fiji we have a concept of the game that Mick Potter is trying out and it is working.”

He said Fiji’s main strength laid with the brilliance of their players’ individual skills and ability, unbalance any sort of structured game situations that their oppositions may be executing during the course of the match.

“That makes the difference, it is also an interesting part of the quarterfinals. On one side we have a very structured team which is New Zealand and we have a team that is going to put together a concept of the game that mixes up with the brilliance of Suliasi Vunivalu, Jarryd Hayne, Akuila Uate and Viliame Kikau.

“These are a few players we’ve, that can make a difference in whatever team that we will be playing against because Fiji is always considered as a team that can pull out in any competition and that is what is going to be expected in this quarterfinal,” he said.

2017 RLWC TEAM STATISTICS MOST POINTS

1.Fiji - 168 points 2.New Zealand– 134 points 3.Tonga– 110 4.Australia– 104 5.Italy– 68