• Mighty Fiji Defeats Yank Amateurs in Rugby World Cup at Townsville

    So, Fiji beat the U.S. at rugby, did they?

    Jarryd Hayne is again on top of the world. The bragging rights alone are worth, what, $25.

    Send Hayne to the All Blacks, send the All Blacks to the U.S. for a McGregor/Mayweather style code hopper, where the world’s top rugby team plays one of the top NFL teams in a gridiron match, and much the same result could be expected as the Fiji 58, US. 12 score in the recent Rugby League World Cup.

    Fortunately, for most of the world where rugby is the sport of choice, the Yanks barely know what it is. They see a rugby ball and think that one of their footballs is either pregnant or suffering from a serious eating disorder and a resultant case of morbid obesity.

    If one of the U.S.’s billionaires ever takes a fancy to rugby, he or she might dangle a few hundred million in front of the world’s best and before anyone knows what happened, bang, New Zealand is no longer the best team in the world, because all the Kiwis will be playing in the U.S. and making NFL money that would dwarf what they can earn playing anywhere else.

    Back to our man-of-the-hour, Hayne scored his 13th World Cup try, equaling the mark of Bob Fulton.

    Still, Fiji is a force with which to be reckoned in the World Cup, despite the recent ascension of Tonga due to an influx of players bolting the national sides of Australia and New Zealand for whatever reasons you choose to believe.

    In the interest of fairness, because to some, it might seem as though we are disposed to sledge Hayne from time to time, we must report that along with scoring his record-equaling try, he set up two others for his teammates.

    Beating the Yanks also cost Fiji a NRL bound player, prop Kane Evans, for the rest of the World Cup, as he sustained a broken wrist crossing for Fiji’s fifth try in the first 17 minutes of the game.