Former Vatukoula utility back Kitione Ratu is unavailable for selection for the Fijian Drua’s round two match against the Brumbies this weekend.
Ratu who started on the right-wing injured his knee in their 40-10 defeat by the Waratahs in the Drua’s Super Rugby Pacific debut last week
One of the last three Swire Shipping Fijian Drua signings, Ratu is on the mend, but it is uncertain at this stage how long he will be out for.
Meanwhile, Drua head coach Mick Byrne said the team is in high spirits and their expectations have not changed.
“We knew we could play well. We knew we could be competitive what we just needed to do was understand if we could live with the pace of the game and I think early on that may have been a little bit of a surprise for us,” Byrne said. “I was listening to a couple of boys they certainly understood the intensity from when they last played in October 2020 to Super Rugby in 2022. That’s great now that we have that learning and that knowledge and that sets us up well for this week.”
Byrne is hopeful that the team will maintain the momentum they showed in the last 20 minutes of the game against the Waratahs for the Brumbies game.
“I think our strength lines what we did in the last 20 minutes in our resilience and our willingness to fight and be physical. Some of our guys haven’t played rugby since October 2020 and going out there and playing their first official game, was something special. That day’s been done now, so we’re in and we can prepare ourselves for a new game.”
For the remainder of their first Super Rugby outing, Byrne said the focus is to keep improving on their performance.
“We’re going to continue to focus on our performance, we got to continue to get better at our performance. And I’m not discounting the expectations of people outside of our camps. They want to see us climb up the ladder. And there’s no doubt that as a team, we want to do the same thing. But for us to be the team we need to be, we’re going to focus on performance. Keep getting better each week, keep that performance better, be more consistent, carry the ball more and we’ll continue to focus on performance, and the ladder will take care of itself. We will be judging ourselves internally on our performances.”
The Fijian Drua currently occupies the tail end of the Super Rugby Pacific standings.
The Brumbies will host the Drua in their round two match-up, scheduled to kick-off at 3.35pm (Fiji Time) at GIO Stadium in Canberra.
Photo: Fijian Drua
