Fijian Drua’s history-making upset puts Western Force’s fate in own hands

The Western Force’s fate is in their own hands after Fijian Drua handed them a finals lifeline with a history-making upset win over the Queensland Reds.

The Force must still beat the league leading Chiefs on Saturday night but needed one of the Reds and Highlanders to lose to the Brumbies (fourth place) or the Blues (third place) respectively to secure a finals spot.

The Fijian Drua made history by beating the Queensland Reds 34-17 in Suva on Saturday to qualify for the quarterfinals of Super Rugby Pacific for the first time.

The match was the first between the Drua and Reds in Fiji, harking back to the days of the Super 6 tournament when Queensland state teams regularly played the Fiji national team.

Backed by a raucous home crowd, the Drua broke out of a 17-17 stalemate at halftime to score three second-half tries while holding the Reds scoreless after the break. When the final whistle sounded, Drua fans shook the National Stadium as they danced to Tina Turner’s “Simply the Best.”

“You can see how happy we are now,” Drua captain Meli Derenalagi said. “Hats off to the soldiers (players) behind me for doing their duty today.

“First of all a big bula vaka levu (many thanks) to our fans who came out in numbers today, just to support their home team.”

There were no signs in an even first half that the Drua would so thoroughly dominate the second. They outplayed the Reds at set pieces and buckled the defense with constant, strong ball-running so that the visitors couldn’t easily escape their own half.

The win was triumphantly sealed by a try to star backrower Joe Tamani, who dashed 50 meters to finish a breakout as the crowd roared its approval.

“Obviously it was a real tough second half,” Reds captain Tate McDermott said. “We competed in the first half but just weren’t in it in the second half.”

The Drua scored the first try of the match after only four minutes when Selestino Ravataumada charged down a clearing kick by Reds flyhalf James O’Connor and collected the bounce to score.

The Reds responded immediately with a try to Ryan Smith but the Drua went ahead again with a try to Kelaveti Ravouvou.

Fraser McReight scored for the Reds, who edged further ahead with an O’Connor penalty, but the Drua leveled the score at halftime with a try to Vilive Miramira.

The second half belonged to the Drua, who added tries to Misake Doge and Tevita Ikanivere as the Reds lost discipline and McReight went to the sin bin. Tamani’s try was a glorious finale.

The Drua have pushed the Dunedin-based Highlanders out of eighth place and now will play either the Chiefs or Crusaders in the first round of the playoffs.

In matches later Saturday in the last round of the regular season, the Hurricanes were playing the second-place Crusaders, the sixth-place Waratahs were at home in Sydney to last-place Moana Pasifika and the Western Force were hosting the league-leading Chiefs in Perth.