Islanders pleased with performance

The side made up of players from Tonga, Fiji and Samoa only got together in the early part of last week, but put on a display that showed off the natural abilities of the south-sea islanders

Former Newport captain Raiwalui was full of praise for the way his team-mates tackled the challenge of Wales. “The most pleasing thing for me was the guys solved the puzzle as they went along,” Raiwalui told the Western Mail. “We looked a bit lost to start with, as you would after just five days together, but the boys figured it out as we went along.”

That was an opinion echoed by coach Pat Lam, who admitted his team had learned to play together on the fly. “We got off to a bad start and showed we were a team that had not played together,” he reflected candidly. “We struggled at the set piece and turned a lot of ball over.”

But the visiting side showed that, despite their lack of preparation time, they could play captivating rugby and they toughened up their game after the interval. “We didn’t lose many line-outs in the second half and we had more ball to play with,” added Raiwalui.