<\/p>\n
\nFlying Fijians captain Tevita Ikanivere taking on the Spanish.
\nPhoto: FRU Media\n<\/p>\n
The Flying Fijians survived a close scare early on Sunday morning, coming from behind a couple of times to beat Spain 41-33 in their third and final tour match.<\/p>\n
Having lost two earlier matches to England and France, the Fijians needed a win to end their three-match Europe tour.<\/p>\n
They managed to do that against a fired up Spanish side, who took the islanders right down to the wire.<\/p>\n
Skipper Tevita Ikanivere said they would take the win but was disappointed at how they performed.<\/p>\n
“Very tough game,” he said.<\/p>\n
“Spain were very good tonight.<\/p>\n
“We could have done better but proud of the boys out there.”<\/p>\n
Spain were good upfront, especially with their mauls, he said.<\/p>\n
“Their rolling mauls were good.<\/p>\n
“Their defensive mauls were good too.”<\/p>\n
The Fijians, ranked eighth in the world, struggled to match their hosts, who turned up the pressure from the opening minutes.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nFijian halfback Simione Kuruvoli on his way to scoring a try against Spain.
\nPhoto: FRU Media\n<\/p>\n
Fiji gave away several early opportunities through basic errors early at the Estadio de Atletismo Ciudad de M\u00e1laga.<\/p>\n
Spain capitalised in the 20th minute, with halfback Estanislao Bay scoring first and the conversion gave them a 7-0 lead.<\/p>\n
Fiji responded with a pinpoint cross-kick from fly-half Isaiah Armstrong-Ravula finding Elia Cakanakaivata, with the conversion levelling terms.<\/p>\n
But Spain led 15-14 at halftime, with a penalty conversion plus a well-worked try, despite Fiji scoring through halfback Simione Kuruvoli.<\/p>\n
The Fijian try came after winger Juita Wainiqolo sliced through Spain’s defence before offloading to halfback Kuruvoli, who dotted down.<\/p>\n
Kuruvoli grabbed is second try after the resumption of the second half, for Fiji to lead 21-15 but Spain hit back again with Bay claiming his second try in the match, giving his side the lead again.<\/p>\n
An exchange of penalty kicks and a try saw Spain lead 33-24 in the 63rd minute.<\/p>\n
Replacement forward Atunaisa Sokowale responded almost immediately for Fiji, powering over to bring the score back to 33-31, with eight minutes left.<\/p>\n
Another expertly placed cross-kick from Armstrong-Ravula found winger Joji Nasova, who scored to reclaim the lead at 38-33.<\/p>\n
Armstrong-Ravula then added another excellent penalty, stretching Fiji’s advantage to 41-33.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Flying Fijians captain Tevita Ikanivere taking on the Spanish. Photo: FRU Media The Flying Fijians survived a close…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[567],"tags":[64,1590,63,1589,44,1591,1588,1586,1587,760,85],"class_list":["post-302887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-au","tag-audio","tag-australia","tag-current-affairs","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-rugby","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302887\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}