This lopsided contest wasn’t long over when Ireland’s captain, Caelan Doris, was talking of how much his squad are looking forward to next Saturday and the visit of Australia. Not in the way he might have done if his team had fallen over the line in a game where they were expected to canter, rather with the enthusiasm that comes from new blood quickening the pulse.
Doris and the coach, Andy Farrell, needed Sam Prendergast on his first start and the hooker Gus McCarthy on debut to look like they belong. Cormac Izuchukwu in the back row was also a first-timer but you cannot have too many contenders in the spine of your side.
“I think we’re going to need to be better again next week but it feels like we’ve got a lot of momentum,” Doris said. “There’s a lot of belief within the group and there’s a lot of excitement about that game and wanting to finish the campaign on a high.”
He did not mention what Joe Schmidt might make of it but for the rest of us it will probably define the week: how the most influential coach in the history of the pro game in Ireland will set about dismantling what he left behind.
For Farrell there was evident relief that for the most part his team looked like they were on the same page and in sync.
“I thought we played some really nice rugby,” he said. “Execution‑wise we left a few out there, which was disappointing but all in all our discipline was a lot better. We controlled field position pretty well and were able to get a few points on the board.”
As a spectacle it helped that the game was played mostly on the ground.
Ireland kicked the ball fewer times than in either of the first two rounds – from 23 times against New Zealand to eight times in this Test – and it helped that Fiji were ploughing the same furrow, albeit with little success.
Their challenge was not helped by being on a different wavelength to the referee, Hollie Davidson. She was in regular conversation with the visitors’ captain, Waisea Nayacalevu, who was always looking for clarity. She penalised them nine times inside the opening half hour. If Fiji were sailing close to the wind on the timing of their tackles – Eroni Mawi was blessed to avoid red, when dodging a second yellow – then Ireland were seemingly able to withstand poachers at the breakdown when you expected the home side to be done.
That put a screw in the heads of the Fijians, which Ireland turned at will. Sam Prendergast looked calmness itself, even when sitting on the naughty step waiting to see if his first half yellow card would be elevated to red. The whole episode didn’t knock a feather out of him.
“I thought Sam pulled the strings really well but he had great performances on the outside in Robbie [Henshaw] and Bundee [Aki],” Farrell said. “They really stepped up and that had to happen for debutants to be able to play well.”
That certainty down the middle of the field kept Fiji under constant pressure.
The eight tries conceded to Doris, Josh van der Flier, Craig Casey, Mack Hansen (two), Aki, McCarthy and Rónan Kelleher could easily have been 10 had the issues Farrell highlighted been, literally, handled better. It wasn’t how Fiji wanted to wrap up their autumn but they were in a different ball game compared to the win in Wales a fortnight ago.
For Ireland it is likely neither Jamie Osborne nor Jacob Stockdale will be fit to face Australia. It was heartening to see the Ulster wing in such good form before hobbling off while Osborne, as he proved in South Africa in the summer, is so much more than an alternative left boot to James Lowe.
Otherwise Farrell looks like he’ll have a decent range of options on the table, not least in the middle of the field where Aki bounced back from an idle weekend to a man of the match performance.
“It’s a massive week coming up for us,” Farrell said. “It’s the 150th anniversary of the IRFU and this is the signature game for that. I’m sure we’ll make sure as far our detail is concerned in what that means to us all, wearing the shirt, that we do that prep during the week.”
