Smokin’ Joe tipped to be England’s version of Sivivatu

POWERHOUSE wing Joe Cokanasiga can enter the annals of rugby fame in the way Fijian legend Sitiveni Sivivatu once did with New Zealand, says Bath teammate Jackson Willison.

Cokanasiga, who is close to winning his first England cap, will need to go some to match Sivivatu’s mark of 29 tries in 45 exhilarating Tests for the All Blacks between 2005 and 2011. However, Willison is well placed to judge the 20year-old’s potential having spent three Super Rugby seasons playing alongside Sivivatu – a scourge of the Lions in 2005 – for the Chiefs. Willison told The Rugby

Paper: “Joe reminds me of a fellow Fijian, Sitiveni Sivivatu. There’s a lot of Xfactor there and while Sitiveni was very casual off the field, it was all business on it.

“Joe’s the same. He’s a quiet guy off the field but once he gets on it that’s like a massive playground to him and the potential is there for him to follow someone like Sitiveni in Test rugby.

“They’re a special breed the Fijians and it’s just a real pleasure to play with them.”

Willison added: “With Joe, his speed and sheer size are outrageous. In oneon-one positions anyone would struggle against him and I’d hate to be that guy having to tackle him.

“He’s in great form for us at the moment and that reflects the pre-season he had. The problem we’ve got is we should be giving him and Semesa Rokoduguni a bit more of the ball.”

Maori All Black centre Willison admits Bath’s early season form is frustrating, with injuries to key midfielders Jamie Roberts and Jonathan Joseph making it hard to establish rhythm.

After last week’s home defeat to Exeter, he said: “Trying to get combinations going week-in, week-out is proving difficult and there’ve been a fair few games where we’ve been in the mix to take the result but lost.

“If you look at the Exeter game, everybody says they’re unbeatable but they’re not. We were well in that game with 20 minutes to go and should have been able to win. It’s our own mistakes that are killing us, which is controllable and our biggest work-on.