Fiji coach Rick Stone admits a 64-0 hammering by Australia is a tough way to go out but says he's proud of the Bati's efforts at the Rugby League World Cup.
Jarryd Hayne bagged a hat-trick against his former team as the Kangaroos ran rampant.
Fiji finished fourth for the second straight World Cup, mixing wins over Ireland and Samoa with defeats against England and the Kangaroos.
Rick Stone says while it's a tough way to end things, there's been plenty of positives to take out of the campaign.
"Bit of a sour taste in our mouth about our performance yesterday. We wanted to see the improvement of what we'd put up in the tournament so far but we took a couple of steps backwards unfortunately. I don't think it should dampen our spirits about the tour and we definitely found a couple of players that we think can play at the international level. Some of them are young players who are going to form the nucleus of our team going forward."
The semi final finish also earns Fiji a spot at next year's Four Nations tournament and Rick Stone can't wait for another crack at the big guns England, New Zealand and Australia.
Yeah it's pretty exciting, absolutely it is, because we need more absolute test football where our best players are playing so if the NRL can sort of get behind a test match like that early in the year and we get the opportunity to play in the Four Nations to be a really significant step and then obviously the next goal is to bridge the gap between those three big sides.
Rick Stone says he's keen to stay on as head coach of the Bati providing his NRL commitments allow it.
