30 Jun 2014

Sport: Flying Fijians coach backs current squad for World Cup

2:21 pm on 30 June 2014

Flying Fijians coach John McKee says the players that sealed their Rugby World Cup qualification have the inside running to be a part of next year's tournament in the Northern Hemisphere.

Fiji crossed for 17 tries in a 108-6 demolition of the Cook Islands in Lautoka on Saturday to clinch their World Cup berth.

It wrapped a largely successful June window, where Fiji also recorded wins against Italy and Tonga, before a solitary defeat against Samoa.

John McKee says the team will only get better the more games they play together.

"One of the things I want to do as head coach is to make sure we are consistent with our selections and I think that's how we can really build our team going forward is to have the core of players playing in each assembly and each tour. We've probably got somewhere between 11 and 12 games between now and the Rugby World Cup so if we've got most of the players that were here in this month, playing so well for us, involved in all of those test matches we're going to have some very good combinations and team linkages going into the Rugby World Cup".

John McKee says the FRU is in discusssions with the IRB about organising up to three extra test matches next year between the Pacific Nations Cup and their World Cup opener against England.