Flying Fijians Unpredictable: Kefu
Wallaby great and Tonga coach, Toutai Kefu, is anticipating a physical and tough encounter against the Vodafone Flying Fijians in their World Rugby Pacific Nations Cup opener at 3:30pm at the HFC Bank Stadium tomorrow.
Kefu has named a strong line–up with debutants Israel Folau, Malaki Fekitoa and Charles Piutau to start.
Like the Flying Fijians, the Ikale
Tahi does not have a local based player on their players’ list.
“Our expectations are always the same against Fiji. It’s very physical, unpredictable, so we expect a very hard game,” he said.
Tonga has taken advantage of World Rugby’s decision last year to allow players to switch their international allegiance after a threeyear break.
It has paved way for Folau, Fekitoa and Piutau to represent Tonga. “Big bonus,” Kefu said.
“We get a lot of experience, professionalism and they not only good players but very good coaches and mentors for the younger players.”
With the 16 Drua players in the Flying Fijians squad, Kefu hopes that the Tonga squad have played together for a while like the Drua players did in the recent Super Rugby Pacific season.
“I was really impressed with Drua, they played very good football and they’re going to get better and better.
“And the thing is, Drua have been playing together all year but this is the first time we put this team together.
“We already have one week together, we hope every week, we will get better.
“I wish we had played together like Drua for the whole year but it is what is.
“We need to be really smart about the way we play. “We got some great attacking players now so we would like to give them the ball as much as possible,” Kefu added.
In the first PNC match, Australia play Samoa at 1pm.