The Vodafone Fijiana 15s have gone down 55–12 to the Springbok Women in the first Test of their two-match series at HFC Bank Stadium in Suva.

Head Coach Willie Walker says South Africa dominated proceedings with their physicality and attacking pressure, scoring repeatedly to take control of the match.

“Yeah, pretty tough introduction obviously for myself in terms of Test Match Rugby. But I can’t say how proud I am of our players today. They put up a great fight. South Africa were always going to be a tough ask for us today. But what it does is it gives us a gauge of where we are currently in areas that we need to be better at for next week.“

The Fijiana fought hard to stay in the contest, with Adi Vani Buleki and Varanisese Koro crossing the line for Fiji, but the Springbok Women proved too strong across the 80 minutes.

The defeat leaves the Fijiana trailing 1–0 in the series, with the side now turning its attention to the second Test at Churchill Park in Lautoka on the 15th of August.

“And we’ll go away this weekend after today and we’ll work hard next week to make sure that we rectify some of the areas that we identified today.”