The Fiji Rugby Union Chief Executive Radrodro Tabulevu says he believes the training his team has had against the Georgian national team will hold them in good stead for the weekend test against France.
The Fiji team spent last week in the South of France preparing for their test and Tabualevu says they were fortunate enough to have a few days of live practice against the Europeans.
"Luckily the Georgians were also in the vicinity of our camp so we organised scrimmages which the coach found very fruitful because of the fact the Georgians are a good scrummaging side and very good in the tight. It gave us an opportunity to fine tune our scrum and our lineout."
Tabualevu says the Flying Fijians are now set and ready for a torrid encounter against the French, although he concedes they already have one eye on next year's world cup.
He says although winning is always nice, the bigger picture for coach John McKee includes the world cup and the tournament opener in particular.
"Our objective for this tour is to set a platform for next year's world cup. First game up the world will be watching when we pit ourselves against the English in Twickenham on the 18th of September so France, Wales and the USA will be an ideal testing time for our coach who is in his first year to have a feel of where the boys are at and what sort of work needs to be done."
Fiji Rugby Logo Photo: Fiji Rugby
Meanwhile Scott Spedding, Teddy Thomas and Alexandre Dumoulin will make their international debuts for France against Fiji. They could be joined by Samoan Uini Atonio, Rory Kockott and Charles Ollivon who are all in contention for a spot on the bench for the game in Marseille. Philippe Saint-André will decide on his reserves later in the week, but the starting line-up will see just seven players survive from the third Test against Australia in June.
