Ireland v Fiji: It would be no great surprise if Ireland followed up the high of a win over the world champions with an anti-climactic performance the next weekend. Think back to the 27-25 win in Paris only three seasons ago, and two weeks later Ireland losing at home to Wales. No really, they did. Gerry Thornley previews Sunday's game
But times have moved on since even then, and professionalism demands no self-congratulatory lapses nowadays. Consistency is now a feature of Irish sides, both provincial as well as international. An unchanged team might have had some difficulty readjusting to a less salubrious occasion and opposition, but the nine changes in the starting line-up should help to offset complacency.
For Geordan Murphy, there's a first opportunity in well over a year to establish himself as Girvan Dempsey's main rival at full back, and thereby muscle into the full-strength squad. For Justin Bishop too, in a very competitive area on the wing, for Guy Easterby to at least start knocking on Peter Stringer's door again, and for Frankie Sheahan, down to third in the hooking pecking order.
Less pressure applies to Marcus Horan and Leo Cullen, proud young tyros making their first starts, more so perhaps to Alan Quinlan and most definitely to the talented but injury-bedevilled Kieron Dawson, on the international comeback trail for perhaps the fifth time. For some of these players this could be a massive, World Cup-defining game.
Two pumps, situated on the respective 22 metre lines in front of the Wanderers bar and the Havelock corner of the ground have been helping to drain the pitch and despite the horrendous rainfalls IRFU press officer John Redmond said yesterday: "Work is being done and there is no doubt about the match. The match will go ahead."
On a rain-sodden night in Wellington last June, the All Blacks scored 11 tries in a 68-18 win over the Fijians, but afterward the home captain Reuben Thorne complained of "a lot of high shots and offside play - it was tough".
With a more diplomatic smile, Brian O'Driscoll has bracketed Fiji with Tonga and Samoa, and is anticipating arising from his slumber on Monday morning with plenty of "bumps and bruises".
A feature of both the Wellington match and their defeat in Cardiff last Saturday was Fiji's bright if unrewarded starts in both games. Another was the fact they retain the capacity to score any time, from anywhere, given a sniff, as evidenced by a couple of long-range tries in both games.
Officially, Ireland and Fiji have only met once in a recorded Test match - Ireland winning 44-8 on this weekend seven years ago at Lansdowne Road. Waisale Serevi had been overlooked as a sevens specialist, though captain Greg Smith and scrumhalf Jacob Raulini survive from that game. A replacement that day was tighthead Viliame Cavubati who, at 6ft 3ins and 22 stone, will have about 5½ stone on Horan.
For the first two meetings, the IRFU, in their snobbish wisdom of the time did not award caps, though the Fijians did. Ireland won 8-0 in Suva in 1976 and at Lansdowne Road in 1985, Ireland's Triple Crown and championship winning side struggled to a 16-15 victory, after being outscored by two tries to one - one of them a long-range intercept.
It would have been three to one but for a dubious late decision by referee Derek Bevan to award a knock-on against the Fijian full back Epeli Turuvua as he set off for what would have been a match-winning intercept try. By the end the home crowd had turned totally against Ireland, who had been undone by the Fijians unstructured approach in what became a loose, shapeless and patternless match.
Brad Johnstone had started his reign when the countries last met and, by focusing on set-pieces and discipline eroded some of the Fijian flair while making them more structured. It worked, Fiji having their most successful World Cup in 1999 when reaching the quarter-final play-offs.
While Mac McCallion has "recognised the need to keep that structure", according to Ireland coach Eddie O'Sullivan, "it seems to me once they've won the ball he's given them the freedom to run anywhere they feel like it."
As the long-range tries underline, Fiji are willing to have a cut from anywhere. "They don't seem to have a 'red zone', where most teams kick the ball to touch," according to O'Sullivan. "If they get an overlap in their own in-goal area, they'll move the ball."
It is this daring nature which so endears them to opposing home crowds, but the tighter the vice-like grip Ireland impose on the Fijians the better, and though Ireland will be expected to entertain, they'd better keep an eye out for those intercepts as well.
As O'Sullivan puts it: "If we go out there and throw the ball around loosely or don't impose a shape on the game that suits us, we could spend a lot of the game chasing around the field."
Therein lies the key to the commanding win which team and fans alike expect.
