The preparation for 2011 Rugby World Cup by the three Pacific Islands team was first class.

IRB Regional General Manager for Oceania, Will Glenwright said that they worked with the High Performance Manager in the development and delivery of their Rugby World Cup plans.

Also they assisted in the recruitment of world-class coaches and spent a lot of time and money in establishing athlete monitoring systems that enabled the Pacific Island Unions to track their overseas-based professional players and keep them up to date with the Union’s plans for Rugby World Cup.

Also players were in the country for an extended period of time in the lead-up to RWC 2011 meant that the best prepared Pacific Island teams took part in NZ.

But while Tonga and Samoa came up with a performance that pleased their fans the Flying Fijians did the opposite when they failed to score a point in the 66-nil loss to Wales in the last pool game.

In the quarterfinals this weekend, Ireland will play Wales in Wellington on Saturday at 5pm.

France will play England at Eden Park on Saturday at 7.30pm.

Australia will play South Africa in Wellington on Sunday at 5pm and the All Blacks will face Argentina at Eden Park on Sunday night at 7.30pm.

You can catch the live commentaries of both games - the All Blacks/Argentina and South Africa/Australia game on Sunday, on our sister station, Viti FM with the voice of rugby, Malakai Veisamasama and expert comments from Ilivasi Tabua.


Story by: Dreu Vukailagi