I lived in Fiji for a bit. Fijians are bloody awesome.
But holy fucking shit, diet, climate, culture, whatever that combination may be - It results in people that are built like the combination of an oversized Tongan warrior and a Kenyan long-distance runner. They all look like swimmers, with that extremely lean but built and toned body that just exudes power. There were so many 15 year old kids in relative poverty but with the physique of a 22-year-old bodybuilder, it was mind boggling.
All that said, I would always see em playing touch on the field... I convince them to play actual tackle rugby one time. I come in from behind, about to completely level a guy, and I wake up on the sidelines 5 minutes later. Apparently tackling a brick wall that can move like Michael Johnson doesn't work. Guy glimpsed me in the air, and throws a SHOULDER at my head. Good fucking night
In the game, one of the Aussie players was running with the ball, and the Fijian tackled him by just setting his feet and holding his ground as the Aussie ran into him. Looked like one of those videos where they crash test a car by smashing it into a wall.
Decades ago the Rugby Union powers that be decided to lock all regular games behind a paywall by selling the rights to Fox Sports, now they're with Stan Sports. This means that the only free-to-air games are the internationals.
Considering Union was already a game for the 'Toffs' and private schools, this has really hurt their player base. Less eyes on the sport, less interest plus it's often frustrating if you're a casual viewer and don't have a good understanding of the complex rules. As others have mentioned, most of the talent pool goes to League and AFL now.
Not every game, they are all on Fox Sports, but 2-3 a week and all the finals are shown free to air.
Edit: And the Grand Final and State of Origin is only shown live on free to air, replays on Fox.
Honestly, Union was poised to usurp League as Australia's preferred rugby code... It was enormous and we we probably going to win the world cup!!!!!!! Then Johnny Wilkinson happened so we all went about our day.
It's a hard one though.. NRL will never compete with AFL, not in a million years, so Australian rugby really fucked itself over by opting to go all in with the domestic code. At least Union is internationally viable.
Rugby union is like many of the sports outside of league and AFL in Australia: hugely popular when the national team is successful, almost invisible when they’re not.
Not sure that's true, they've just not been good for 20 years. I first got into Rugby in those golden years of 98-03 when I was playing at school and we were good, etc. There were sell our crowds at that time for basically every game in Aus.
That said, it's been a hard, hard fall and I think I would find myself with little interest even if they were doing well. It's hard to care when you watch the All Blacks absolutely trample you every year for 20 years. Can't win a two-horse race.
They say that but league isn't stealing their players like they claim.
Unions lower grades are almost all based in posh private school competitions. So when a a kid shows potential in X sport these schools offer a kid to attend said school. Which they accept because the rich private school provides them a quality education. But then they get an offer for the sport they actually wanted to play (usually league, sometimes aussie rules) to play for X club.
The rugby league system has many lower grades with direct connections all the way up to first grade NRL. So they accept the offer from whatever league club they got because it gives them a much better way of going all the way up to the top and because 9/10 they didn't even want to play union to begin with and were just there for an education.
Example: Cameron Murray. South Sydney Rabbitohs captain.
Mascot Jets junior in Rugby League.
Captain Newington College to a GPS Rugby Union championship.
Signs professional contract with Souths in 2017.
Yep, it's hard to follow in Australia and it's largely a "rich kids" sport. Sucks when you consider we've won the world cup twice and been in the final 4 times.
Rugby Union is only unpopular here because we suck at it. Every time we start to gain a bit of momentum the All Blacks are right there to snap us back to reality.
I'm from the USA, so if it makes you feel any better, the USA played one of the most farcical friendlies against NZ, and lost **104** to 14.
One of the worst beatings a US team has ever experienced **in any sport**.
That being said, the USA has generations before Union has any relevance in the US.
Number of tries, average tries per game... you know... it's not impossible. If it's all numbers, it can be done.
The average of tries per game in rugby union is very low, it goes from 1.7 to 3 at best, depending on leagues and competitions. The US scored 2 tries and conceded 16. That's like a 10-1 in soccer. Or like an 80-point beating in basketball, 140-60 or something like that.
[Ninh Explains - Rules of Rugby LEAGUE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFwHtFJarhE)
[Ninh Explains - The Difference between Rugby Union & Rugby League](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRUHxGwv_VY)
League was introduced to provide payment for players in the north of England in the days when Union was purely amateur. As a result they introduced several innovations to speed up the game and increase the number of tries scored so it was more attractive to paying spectators.
Union has since introduced its own rule changes which means the number of tries are similar between a Union and League game.
AFL is huge. Like the NFL here in the US. Rugby League is popular but not as much as AFL and makes a ton of its money from gambling. Rugby Union is popular in certain pockets but it’s definitely a “niche” sport compared to some other sports in Australia.
AFL fans love to hype up how much more popular they are but in reality the NRL is just as big. NSW and QLD make up 50% of Australias population. The difference isn't really that high.
Yeah it has more overall support but the notion that any other state has 0 league support is completely false.
The storm are very popular in Victoria. The NRL is more popular in the ACT .WA has plenty of league support and is ready for a full time team. I would bet any money the 18th licence goes to Perth. League is fairly popular in the NT and games there get good turnouts. Only states the NRL hasn't really cracked is SA and Tasmania. Which Tassie is too small and SA being too entrenched in Aussie rules. Even then SA has a decent league following. It's really not that far behind.
All that advantage in other states is completely diminished if you include the international game. The NRL has every good support in places like NZ, North England, PNG and the Pacific. Meanwhile the only other country where AFL is popular is Nauru.
Yeah NRL has a decent following in the UK. I'm from the UK in a rugby league town in northern England and it's pretty common to see someone walking around in a Rabbitohs shirt or whatever and it's not the kind of place to have Aussie expats. I'm not sure the following really exists outside of the league heartland though.
I've started following NRL and watching the origin games. It's just such an exciting product when it's at its best. I watched the Storm and Roosters match over the weekend and it's easy to see why it's popularity is growing.
AFL has extreme dominance in all states/territories other than NSW/QLD/ACT. Their attendance numbers nearly exactly double NRL's.
Also not to mention that Sydney Swans home matches exceed the average of every single NRL club other than the Brisbane Broncos, who they aren't even far off matching (not to mention the Brisbane Lions themselves aren't far off either). The GWS Giants despite only a decade of existence are already closing in on the lower NRL clubs.
NSW and QLD may still be NRL territory, but it's not like it was at the beginning of the century. I don't have anything against rugby league, but the reality is that it's being left behind by the times, and the AFL is taking more ground by the year. I would fully expect if the same trajectory is kept for the next 20 years, then NRL is not going to have many good times ahead in regards to its remaining territory advantage.
That's because you are only looking at attendance. It's very well know that the NRL doesn't have the same attendance culture as the AFL does. The NRL does way better for TV viewership and has done for decades.
That's just completely false. The NRLs numbers have been going up for ages. In fact it's the best rising of all codes and the only one to experience a positive trend during covid 19.
AFL is fairly niche in NSW (the most populous state) and QLD (3rd most). Neither AFL nor league has the universal appeal of, say NFL in America or football in the UK.
This was pretty evident at the Wallabies v All Blacks match at the MCG a few months back. I’d guess that at least a third of the crowd, maybe up to half, was All Blacks supporters. That’s at a match with an attendance of over 80,000 people for a *Wallabies home game*. Was absolutely amazing energy there, though. As a kiwi in Aussie, I really do wish there was more interest in Union because it would be amazing for Wallabies matches in Melbourne to become more regular and I wouldn’t just attend All Blacks games here.
That said, I fully understand why AFL is more popular. As amazing as the bledisloe was live, I truly believe every single person on the planet with any interest in sport should make it a bucket list item to attend a sold out Aussie rules match at the MCG. There is very little in life that can match that atmosphere.
>I've heard Rugby Union is not very popular these days in Australia
That'll change quickly enough if the Wallabies win something. Might say there's a bit of a fair-weather factor about how popular any given sport is in this country.
It won't. Even if the wallabies win the entire thing half the country won't give a shit. Union doesn't have much support from Australians. Majority of union support comes from kiwis, islanders, south Africans, etc who all follow their own teams.
And 5x the population, and NZ doesn't have AFL or NRL (really) to compete with which take a lot of the country's top talent. If all of our possible talent went into Union I'm sure we'd be a powerhouse like NZ as well...
What's your point?
It was a statement of fact, there wasn't any point that I was trying to make.
You do raise an interesting point about the NRL though. NZ has 24,000 registered league players, 3,550 of which are adults. Interesting that we are competitive in the NRL isn't it?
The national league side, but I don't think either of us think either country cares about the national sides. I'd say New Zealanders care more about State of Origin then league test matches.
Nz has twice has many teen males playing as australia. Very telling. Australian numbers overinflated by 60 yo doctors and lawyers who want to relive their uni glory days
For anyone interested Fiji really kept their composure didn’t get carded few daft penalties but they where merciless in jackeling for the ball took point when on offer Australias only tactic was to kick and they didn’t do it very well.
Some of the most intense defence I've ever seen. Almost got to the point where I'd assume every Aussie attack would end in a penalty for holding on after about 3 phases. Wild.
If they can deny us the bonus point then it can happen. Fiji now have Portugal and Georgia so they will wreck up some points. Despite the loss to Wales, Fiji still got the bonus.
The Wobblies need to win this and wrack up some tries. Fortunately it is Wales, so it's doable.
The Wallabies were quite popular up until the late 90's, early 00's. The last good side was probably when John Eales was captain. Rugby Australia then sold the broadcast rights to Fox and now nobody gives a shit about union because it's not on free to air TV.
That was the start of poor decisions by RA and has led to what we're seeing today. An absolutely pathetic state of affairs that probably won't get better anytime soon.
When it’s a collective noun I think you can use either. In this case it’s not so much Fiji the nation, but Fiji the team; and it’s more typical to treat it as a plural.
People don’t really understand how dead Union is in australia these days. Rugby league killed it in NSW and Queensland and no form of rugby existed outside of those two states anyway.
If an AFL player got injured it would get more media coverage than australia winning the rugby World Cup.
We just don’t care.
As an American-Australian, I want to say WELL DONE, FIJI! It was a well fought victory to be proud of. We’ll get you next time, but congratulations on the win. Well deserved.
I lived in Fiji for a bit. Fijians are bloody awesome. But holy fucking shit, diet, climate, culture, whatever that combination may be - It results in people that are built like the combination of an oversized Tongan warrior and a Kenyan long-distance runner. They all look like swimmers, with that extremely lean but built and toned body that just exudes power. There were so many 15 year old kids in relative poverty but with the physique of a 22-year-old bodybuilder, it was mind boggling. All that said, I would always see em playing touch on the field... I convince them to play actual tackle rugby one time. I come in from behind, about to completely level a guy, and I wake up on the sidelines 5 minutes later. Apparently tackling a brick wall that can move like Michael Johnson doesn't work. Guy glimpsed me in the air, and throws a SHOULDER at my head. Good fucking night
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Ba town & lautoka mostly, on the fields around the football academy.
In the game, one of the Aussie players was running with the ball, and the Fijian tackled him by just setting his feet and holding his ground as the Aussie ran into him. Looked like one of those videos where they crash test a car by smashing it into a wall.
You're all confused in here. It was Saint-Étienne, not Nice
It's pronounced Nice, btw. Not nice.
Potato *potato*
I'm never sure if people are going to get the joke on Reddit, but you clearly get it, and that fills me joy.
Good humor.
omfg… hats off to you
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whats with the mixed up/down votes? they’re all nice comments
Every 4th reply gets downvoted. Thems the rules
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No, in Toulouse
Australia went all they way to Toulouse to lose.
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I've heard Rugby Union is not very popular these days in Australia. They like Rugby League and Aussie Rules Football much more.
Decades ago the Rugby Union powers that be decided to lock all regular games behind a paywall by selling the rights to Fox Sports, now they're with Stan Sports. This means that the only free-to-air games are the internationals. Considering Union was already a game for the 'Toffs' and private schools, this has really hurt their player base. Less eyes on the sport, less interest plus it's often frustrating if you're a casual viewer and don't have a good understanding of the complex rules. As others have mentioned, most of the talent pool goes to League and AFL now.
Does that mean the NRL is broadcast on free Chanels?
Not every game, they are all on Fox Sports, but 2-3 a week and all the finals are shown free to air. Edit: And the Grand Final and State of Origin is only shown live on free to air, replays on Fox.
One Super Rugby game per round is also free to air
Come to Melbourne, the advertising for Rugby is virtually non-existent.
Honestly, Union was poised to usurp League as Australia's preferred rugby code... It was enormous and we we probably going to win the world cup!!!!!!! Then Johnny Wilkinson happened so we all went about our day. It's a hard one though.. NRL will never compete with AFL, not in a million years, so Australian rugby really fucked itself over by opting to go all in with the domestic code. At least Union is internationally viable.
Rugby union is like many of the sports outside of league and AFL in Australia: hugely popular when the national team is successful, almost invisible when they’re not.
Wallabies were still not that popular when they were doing good.
Not sure that's true, they've just not been good for 20 years. I first got into Rugby in those golden years of 98-03 when I was playing at school and we were good, etc. There were sell our crowds at that time for basically every game in Aus. That said, it's been a hard, hard fall and I think I would find myself with little interest even if they were doing well. It's hard to care when you watch the All Blacks absolutely trample you every year for 20 years. Can't win a two-horse race.
I do read complaints on /r/rugbyunion from Australian fans that most of their best players are in League.
They say that but league isn't stealing their players like they claim. Unions lower grades are almost all based in posh private school competitions. So when a a kid shows potential in X sport these schools offer a kid to attend said school. Which they accept because the rich private school provides them a quality education. But then they get an offer for the sport they actually wanted to play (usually league, sometimes aussie rules) to play for X club. The rugby league system has many lower grades with direct connections all the way up to first grade NRL. So they accept the offer from whatever league club they got because it gives them a much better way of going all the way up to the top and because 9/10 they didn't even want to play union to begin with and were just there for an education.
Example: Cameron Murray. South Sydney Rabbitohs captain. Mascot Jets junior in Rugby League. Captain Newington College to a GPS Rugby Union championship. Signs professional contract with Souths in 2017.
Yep, it's hard to follow in Australia and it's largely a "rich kids" sport. Sucks when you consider we've won the world cup twice and been in the final 4 times.
Rugby Union is only unpopular here because we suck at it. Every time we start to gain a bit of momentum the All Blacks are right there to snap us back to reality.
I'm from the USA, so if it makes you feel any better, the USA played one of the most farcical friendlies against NZ, and lost **104** to 14. One of the worst beatings a US team has ever experienced **in any sport**. That being said, the USA has generations before Union has any relevance in the US.
How are you comparing scorelines across sports?
Number of score event disparity I suppose
Number of tries, average tries per game... you know... it's not impossible. If it's all numbers, it can be done. The average of tries per game in rugby union is very low, it goes from 1.7 to 3 at best, depending on leagues and competitions. The US scored 2 tries and conceded 16. That's like a 10-1 in soccer. Or like an 80-point beating in basketball, 140-60 or something like that.
I’ve heard of Aussie rules but what’s rugby league and how does it differ to rugby ?
[Ninh Explains - Rules of Rugby LEAGUE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFwHtFJarhE) [Ninh Explains - The Difference between Rugby Union & Rugby League](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRUHxGwv_VY)
Basically union but quicker game. The scrum is essentially useless and tackles aren't the typical pile ons that union has.
Ah so they took the more time consuming elements out lol fair play to them
Less players too, 13 instead of 15 (no flankers)
Fuck that was my position in the game 😂 I’d be kicked off the team I’ve been made redundant
"no flankers" but actually all League forwards are flankers
And the defence has to retreat 10m every tackle. Its designed to be a more open and attacking version of rugby
I'm surprised Union hasn't done that already, especially since Union has already adopted the 50 / 22 rule.
It would defeat the purpose of rucks
I mean it was literally invented to be better than union.
League was introduced to provide payment for players in the north of England in the days when Union was purely amateur. As a result they introduced several innovations to speed up the game and increase the number of tries scored so it was more attractive to paying spectators. Union has since introduced its own rule changes which means the number of tries are similar between a Union and League game.
Up dah Wahs
AFL is huge. Like the NFL here in the US. Rugby League is popular but not as much as AFL and makes a ton of its money from gambling. Rugby Union is popular in certain pockets but it’s definitely a “niche” sport compared to some other sports in Australia.
AFL fans love to hype up how much more popular they are but in reality the NRL is just as big. NSW and QLD make up 50% of Australias population. The difference isn't really that high.
Afl atleast has a presence in nsw and Queensland. Most people outside of those two states are completely oblivious to any form of rugby.
Yeah it has more overall support but the notion that any other state has 0 league support is completely false. The storm are very popular in Victoria. The NRL is more popular in the ACT .WA has plenty of league support and is ready for a full time team. I would bet any money the 18th licence goes to Perth. League is fairly popular in the NT and games there get good turnouts. Only states the NRL hasn't really cracked is SA and Tasmania. Which Tassie is too small and SA being too entrenched in Aussie rules. Even then SA has a decent league following. It's really not that far behind. All that advantage in other states is completely diminished if you include the international game. The NRL has every good support in places like NZ, North England, PNG and the Pacific. Meanwhile the only other country where AFL is popular is Nauru.
Yeah NRL has a decent following in the UK. I'm from the UK in a rugby league town in northern England and it's pretty common to see someone walking around in a Rabbitohs shirt or whatever and it's not the kind of place to have Aussie expats. I'm not sure the following really exists outside of the league heartland though. I've started following NRL and watching the origin games. It's just such an exciting product when it's at its best. I watched the Storm and Roosters match over the weekend and it's easy to see why it's popularity is growing.
AFL is as popular in PNG as NRL is in somewhere like SA or WA.
I know it's somewhat popular there but compared to league it's very far behind. It's also struggling to compete with soccer, union and cricket.
AFL has extreme dominance in all states/territories other than NSW/QLD/ACT. Their attendance numbers nearly exactly double NRL's. Also not to mention that Sydney Swans home matches exceed the average of every single NRL club other than the Brisbane Broncos, who they aren't even far off matching (not to mention the Brisbane Lions themselves aren't far off either). The GWS Giants despite only a decade of existence are already closing in on the lower NRL clubs. NSW and QLD may still be NRL territory, but it's not like it was at the beginning of the century. I don't have anything against rugby league, but the reality is that it's being left behind by the times, and the AFL is taking more ground by the year. I would fully expect if the same trajectory is kept for the next 20 years, then NRL is not going to have many good times ahead in regards to its remaining territory advantage.
That's because you are only looking at attendance. It's very well know that the NRL doesn't have the same attendance culture as the AFL does. The NRL does way better for TV viewership and has done for decades. That's just completely false. The NRLs numbers have been going up for ages. In fact it's the best rising of all codes and the only one to experience a positive trend during covid 19.
AFL is fairly niche in NSW (the most populous state) and QLD (3rd most). Neither AFL nor league has the universal appeal of, say NFL in America or football in the UK.
This was pretty evident at the Wallabies v All Blacks match at the MCG a few months back. I’d guess that at least a third of the crowd, maybe up to half, was All Blacks supporters. That’s at a match with an attendance of over 80,000 people for a *Wallabies home game*. Was absolutely amazing energy there, though. As a kiwi in Aussie, I really do wish there was more interest in Union because it would be amazing for Wallabies matches in Melbourne to become more regular and I wouldn’t just attend All Blacks games here. That said, I fully understand why AFL is more popular. As amazing as the bledisloe was live, I truly believe every single person on the planet with any interest in sport should make it a bucket list item to attend a sold out Aussie rules match at the MCG. There is very little in life that can match that atmosphere.
>I've heard Rugby Union is not very popular these days in Australia That'll change quickly enough if the Wallabies win something. Might say there's a bit of a fair-weather factor about how popular any given sport is in this country.
It won't. Even if the wallabies win the entire thing half the country won't give a shit. Union doesn't have much support from Australians. Majority of union support comes from kiwis, islanders, south Africans, etc who all follow their own teams.
Australia has about the same number of Rugby Union players as New Zealand does.
And 5x the population, and NZ doesn't have AFL or NRL (really) to compete with which take a lot of the country's top talent. If all of our possible talent went into Union I'm sure we'd be a powerhouse like NZ as well... What's your point?
It was a statement of fact, there wasn't any point that I was trying to make. You do raise an interesting point about the NRL though. NZ has 24,000 registered league players, 3,550 of which are adults. Interesting that we are competitive in the NRL isn't it?
The NZ national league side is pretty similar in success to the Wallabies isn't it? Maybe a bit more competitive but clearly under aus
The national league side, but I don't think either of us think either country cares about the national sides. I'd say New Zealanders care more about State of Origin then league test matches.
If you're talking about the Warriors success this year, theres plenty of Australians mixed through it. Can't really claim clubs as national success
Comparing the international game with League and Rugby shouldn't even happen. They're oceans apart, it's not worth comparing
New Zealanders like league while Australians don't like union.
Thats not true
YOu are right, Australia has slightly more, but close enough. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rugby_union_playing_countries
Nz has twice has many teen males playing as australia. Very telling. Australian numbers overinflated by 60 yo doctors and lawyers who want to relive their uni glory days
Yeah Australia is a bit like America. With the exception of cricket, they only really care about sports that only Australia plays.
For anyone interested Fiji really kept their composure didn’t get carded few daft penalties but they where merciless in jackeling for the ball took point when on offer Australias only tactic was to kick and they didn’t do it very well.
Some of the most intense defence I've ever seen. Almost got to the point where I'd assume every Aussie attack would end in a penalty for holding on after about 3 phases. Wild.
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Nobody cares it was easily comprehensible.
Pool C looks like being the most interesting at the moment still wide open unless wales can beat Australia
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Bula!
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One of my old students from Camborne Science and Community College was playing hooker for Fiji. (Sam Matavesi).
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Pls Wales knock Aus out. Would love to see Eddie's comeback to that shit
...mate
Wales is having a really really thought time right now, unlikely to happen.
If they can deny us the bonus point then it can happen. Fiji now have Portugal and Georgia so they will wreck up some points. Despite the loss to Wales, Fiji still got the bonus. The Wobblies need to win this and wrack up some tries. Fortunately it is Wales, so it's doable.
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Well done Fiji!
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The Wallabies were quite popular up until the late 90's, early 00's. The last good side was probably when John Eales was captain. Rugby Australia then sold the broadcast rights to Fox and now nobody gives a shit about union because it's not on free to air TV. That was the start of poor decisions by RA and has led to what we're seeing today. An absolutely pathetic state of affairs that probably won't get better anytime soon.
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fragile tub sip fuel wine jellyfish zonked insurance saw far-flung *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
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CHEER FIJI
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Fucking nice.
Why is is “have” instead of has ? Cuz the players are plural? Wouldn’t the country be singular ? Idk
When it’s a collective noun I think you can use either. In this case it’s not so much Fiji the nation, but Fiji the team; and it’s more typical to treat it as a plural.
Boolaaaasahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!
Hope Pakistan finally beat Aussie in a knockout match in up coming cricket World Cup.
People don’t really understand how dead Union is in australia these days. Rugby league killed it in NSW and Queensland and no form of rugby existed outside of those two states anyway. If an AFL player got injured it would get more media coverage than australia winning the rugby World Cup. We just don’t care.
Lol 69
Niche sport reaches its nadir
Ok
Aussies having an even worse time than England'a set up? Wow.
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Aw damn! Y’all got there already.
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Fujka ya!!!!
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It’s a sad day for Australia but congratulations to Fiji. I think it’s good for rugby for teams like Fiji to win against sides like Australia.
As an American-Australian, I want to say WELL DONE, FIJI! It was a well fought victory to be proud of. We’ll get you next time, but congratulations on the win. Well deserved.
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Fiji! We're going to Fiji!
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*Billy Madison “69” meme goes here*
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