Ireland centre Stuart McCloskey says Andy Farrell’s side will try “not to get into too much of an arm wrestle” with Fiji when the sides meet in the Nations Championship in Dublin on Saturday.
Ireland have won three of their four fixtures to date, including a 42-12 victory over Argentina at the Aviva Stadium on Friday, to sit third in the northern hemisphere table of the competition.
Fiji have yet to pick up a point from four outings, losing 54-17 to France in Paris last weekend, but Ulster back McCloskey is expecting a physical contest against Jake White’s side.
“When they get it right they can be incredibly physical, they can get the ball moving, depends how the weather is, hopefully there’s a bit of rain so they don’t offload as much,” said McCloskey.
“We’ll go after them in different ways and will hopefully be a bit more structured than they are.
“It’s good once or twice a year to have a game this physical. Hopefully we won’t get too much into an arm wrestle with them, we’ll try to let our shape do the work, give us one-on-ones instead of running into brick walls.”
The 34-year-old insists there will be no complacency in the Ireland camp.
“They [Fiji] obviously had a great result against Japan in the summer, winning over there.
“I don’t think they’ll be too happy with the weekend, away in France, but it’s happened to the best of us, we saw what happened to us going there in the Six Nations on a Thursday night and we got ‘hockeyed’ a bit as well.
“That can happen to anybody against a good French team.”
McCloskey’s stellar form was rewarded with a nomination for the 2026 Six Nations Player of the Championship – and he is happy that he has carried that positivity into the new campaign.
“A very positive year last year all round, the start of this season my form for Ulster has been pretty good,” he reflected.
“At the weekend there I was happy enough with how it went.”
McCloskey was partnered with Robbie Henshaw in midfield against the Pumas, more than a decade since they last linked up in the green shirt.
“I don’t think Robbie has ever let Ireland down in any shape or form and I thought we connected well at the weekend.
“I think it was 10 and a half years since we played together at Twickenham in my first cap.
“So we had a lot of time together, a lot of training sessions together, and it’s pretty seamless I think when any of the centres jump into the group of us.”
He continued: “It always works pretty well. I thought we both went solidly, if not spectacular.
“You’re going to have games like that at centre, especially if Sam [Prendergast] is playing pretty well and the back three are getting as much ball as they did,” he said.
