It was never going to be an easy task for Scotland, who lost eight players on British & Irish Lions duty, but they did not make it easy on themselves. Conceding three yellow cards and being a man down for the last 14 minutes when winger Darcy Graham was red-carded for an off-side penalty. Graham’s infringement also handed the Fijians a penalty try and with it, the match.

Despite Scottish full-back Kyle Rowe scoring after only three minutes, the Scots spent most of the game on the back foot, conceding penalty after penalty. The loss to ninth-ranked Fiji will cost Scotland world rankings points and likely push them outside the top six when the World Cup draw is made in December.

Scotland were ranked seventh coming into the match, narrowly behind sixth-placed Argentina, and will need to bounce back in a week’s time against Samoa in Auckland.

‘They only had themselves to blame’

After the match, Scotland’s captain Rory Darge said they only had themselves to blame for their poor performance.

“I’m sure when we watch it back there’s loads of things that we could have done better. There’s a good few errors in there, discipline, giving away penalties – so there’re things that we’re not controlling."

For Fiji, however, it was pure joy. “I think we deserved that win. We worked so hard these past two weeks,” said the Fijian captain, Tevita Ikanivere.

“The last president said there’s only a few things that bring Fijians together and rugby is one. It was great today to see everyone enjoying themselves and enjoying Fiji.”

This was Fiji’s third win over Scotland and sweet revenge for their 57-17 thrashing in the teams' previous meeting in Edinburgh in November.

OFM Sport/Ilse Smalberger dg