Ireland face Fiji in a crucial second-round match of the IRB Under-21 World Cup at the Rand Afrikaans University stadium today. Last Friday Ireland were soundly beaten by Australia in a game where they were obviously short of match practice.

The scoreline of 51-18 suggested a thrashing, but Ireland were perhaps the better team in the second half once they re-organised their defence. "There was a lot of rustiness in that game," said coach Ciarán Fitzgerald. "This tournament is out of season for us and it took the players a little time to settle down and against a team of the calibre of Australia, the time it took was costly.

"We hadn't played together since March and they punished us, particularly in the first half when we were ill-disciplined defensively. The players were guilty of chasing the ball rather than staying in their defensive lines and there were easy breeches of that line by the Australians."

Fiji were beaten 80-10 by France in their opening match but Ireland would do well not to take them lightly though, as they possess some skilled runners who have been brought up on a diet of sevens rugby. However, it is a must-win match for the Irish with a final pool game against South Africa to come. The Baby Boks thrashed Romania 135-0.

Fitzgerald made just two changes to the team from the Australia encounter, one forced by injury. Hooker Rory Best replaces Kevin Corrigan who moves to the bench while Conor Hartigan comes in on the flank for the concussed Neil McMillan.

"We had a good session on Sunday and the players saw the video of the Australia match and realised where they went wrong," Fitzgerald said. "I was much more positive about the way we played in the second half and if they keep that up then things will go much better."

IRELAND: G Duffy; M McPhail, G Mitchell, C O'Sullivan, S Young; E Hickey, Brian O'Riordan; John Lyne, R Best, B Young, S Keogh, M McCullough, S Jennings, C Hartigan, R Wilson. Replacements: K Corrigan, S Phillips, C Murphy, T Barker, B Lynn, F Murphy, C McPhillips.