The Fijian Drua slipped into Super Rugby Pacific pretty much under the radar. The Covid pandemic kept them in Australia through their first season . . . homesick, haemorrhaging money and way short of the fitness and pro Rugby smarts they needed to compete. And nobody came to watch them.
When they got back to Fiji for a couple of games at the end of the season, everything changed. Three years in, numbers tell a different story. In a population of around 930,000, more than 500,000 watch their home games on TV. That’s a verified penetration unmatched anywhere.
They have twice made the Super Rugby play-offs, and the Drua are universally recognised as the X factor that has lifted Fiji to a new international strata, knocking over Australia at the last World Cup to make the…
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