Pacific Nations Cup 2011 wrap-up - Japan victorious

First! Good to see Japan developping!

First! (in Central European Time)
I wish I could see the plays that got 3 Fiji player sent off. Japan is surely a very deserving team, but it's hard to evaluate a team that's playing at 15 vs 14/13/12 during the better part of a match.

....after being reduced to 12! that's just crazy.

You can see the hits on youtube if you look.
They were dangerous, but I don't know if Fiji deserved as many cards as they got.

Awesome stepping by the big prop at the start

@^^^ I thought it as a no 7, he's just smaller and chunkier. All the same though, the finishing was something a wing would be proud of.

*was

I am a douche bag

Congratulations to Japan for the win! Its really good for rugby to see smaller unions improve like this, and Japan has really come through in the last few years.

Tough luck on Fiji, their indiscipline cost them.

That being said, the referee (Jonker, I think) had a shocker. First yellow card (on waqaniburotu, fiji n6) wasn't even a card. Simple case of a hit so hard the carrier bounces back and tackler can't wrap the arms. The first red (to Koyamaibole, fiji n8) was a card, but a yellow. A later arm around the neck of a fijian by japanese n8 was punished with a simple penalty. Also, japan got away with murder in the breakdown, frequently the tackler not releasing, preventing the carrier to put the ball back, ultimatelly resulting in fiji getting pinged for holding the ball. Also, 3 advantages for Fiji the whole game, and 10349876543975634985 for Japan. In the third try, Japan gets 7-10 meters across the advantage line, ends up spilling the ball forward and gets a "no advantage" call by Jonker and gets a do-over, 10 meters from Fiji's line.

Not justifying Fiji's defeat, it was their fault they gave away most of their huge amount of penalties, and Japan played with real tenacity and discipline to ultimatelly come with away with the win. Just saying that in a test where a team like Fiji has a real fisical style of play that is based on exploring the difference in size between the teams, a referee like that can really hurt a side, by hampering their fisical game with such harsh and sometimes unfair calls.

My two cents (which are probably wrong. second rowers take too many knocks to the head, and that explains a lot)

Found full highlights of the final here if anyone's interested:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhE5cBFankU

Not sure Rabeni deserved a red card for his high shot, but there did seem to be an awful lot of the dirty play that's earned the islanders their unwanted reputation...

Playing the ref is part of the game at this high level, I reckon the Fijian coach ought to have cautioned them about their approach towards the ref.

I dunno why but every time a ref has a bad game, people think it's Jonker. And he's actually a good ref. The referee here is actually George Clancy from Limerick. Not terribly bad, an up and comer, may get a semi final at this years world cup.

Darren, if you're going to correct something, don't do it with information that's wrong. The referee is Peter Fitzgibbon, not George Clancy like you said. Clancy is tall and thin and has a full head of hair. He really could not be less like Fitzgibbon.

Also, Marius Jonker was the assistant referee, and he adviced the referee to give both the cards I posted about. As for the ref, the up and commer, god forbid he gets his hands on a wc semi, or the breakdown will be a joke. Again

After watching the full highlights of the game it is fair to say that the red cards were 'deserved' for Fiji...seems they'll never learn, sad.

I love how people bitch about clancy at the breakdown.. . they just want mccaw to get away with murder at the breakdown...

they know if clancy is there the breakdown will be reffed properly and the mccaw may ACTUALLY stand a chance at getting sent off.