Moana Pasifika brace for the battle of the Pacific
Moana Pasifika forwards coach Tom Coventry reckons playing Fijian Drua in Lautoka is as demanding a gig as you can get in rugby.
The two Pacific rivals in the Super Rugby Pacific competition clash at Churchill Park today, and the Moana side not only have to contend with the afternoon heat — with a 2.30pm kickoff — but also the fanatical crowd support that the Drua attract for their home games.
“It’s a little bit different than playing at Suva in the evening . . . it’s as tough an event as you will probably get in a rugby union game, in my opinion,” Coventry said this week.
“Their crowds are marvellous, aren’t they,” he said as he sized up the obstacles for Moana in the middle-of- the-table match-up.
“The only way you can really deal with a Fijian crowd is to make sure you are playing good footy and playing on top of the team they support. So obviously we are going to have to be very good.”
The two teams sit seventh and eighth on the points table, both on 13 points with the Drua seventh by virtue of their superior points differential.
Moana have conceded the most points in the competition, 303, but after some heavy losses against the Brumbies, Blues and Chiefs, they bounced back to beat the Reds 17-14 in the last match on April 12 and will look to maintain that form.
“We know we are up for a challenge. We have got consistency with our team as far as selection goes, and hopefully we can gather that momentum that we had a week ago and continue on in Fiji but we understand how tough it is going to be.”
It is one of the big games that Moana are targeting as Coventry outlined their “top eight” philosophy, which differs from the “win everything” approach of more fancied teams in the competition.
“Right at the start of the year we understood that we were going to struggle at times. The reality is that the best teams in the competition have a little bit on us at the moment, and our expectations have been around making sure we pick opportunities to stay in some of the games where we think we can compete a bit harder.
“That does not mean we are going into games with a mindset that we are going to give up points. Certainly we weren’t very happy how that happened with the Blues [47-8 loss] and the Chiefs [68-12] for example.” Coventry said Moana had some good fortune when they squeaked in 39-36 against the Drua the last time the two teams met, during the Super Round in Melbourne, on March 2.
“This is a big one for us, a big one for them,” he said of today’s clash.