Dragons' fire quenched as Fiji get a draw in Cardiff
Wales slumped to a 16-all draw against Fiji at the Millennium Stadium on Friday night as their winless streak extended to six games.
A penalty try awarded just before the hour mark seemed to have made the difference and Wales looked set to claim a much-needed triumph.
But Seremaia Bai landed an injury-time penalty to clinch a draw at the death and leave Wales' autumn campaign in tatters with three losses, and New Zealand still to come next week.
The Dragons have not tasted victory since the 33-10 Six Nations victory over Italy in March and carried into the game the painful memories of their 2007 World Cup exit at the hands of Fiji. On that sunny day in Nantes, Wales were sucked into playing Fiji at their own game.
In the build-up to this clash all the talk in the Welsh camp was about the importance of securing a triumph and playing intelligent rugby.
But all that went out of the window in a loose and error-strewn encounter as Wales fell into the same trap as before.
The introduction of four second-half replacements for Wales appeared to turn the game and secure a win after Fiji had surged into a 13-6 halftime lead. But Bai's injury-time penalty broke Welsh hearts.
Dan Biggar landed the first points of the game with a well-struck penalty just moments after Bai hit the post with an early shot at goal. Bai then equalised, but Biggar added a second on 22 minutes before Matavesi responded, Bai being in the sin bin for an earlier dangerous tackle.
Wales were the first to threaten a try when Hook and Bishop combined to put Brew into space. But the powerful wing was tackled just before he could return the ball to Hook to score.
The South Sea islanders were the first to touch down, thanks to Albert Vulivuli. Sisa Koyamaibole, who caused Wales so many problems in 2007, made the initial break from the back of a line-out. The big No8 was eventually hauled down by Biggar and last week's hero, George North, but the ball was recycled and spread wide to the Racing Metro 92 centre, who crashed through Hook to score.
Bai converted to give the visitors a 13-6 lead.
The scores remained the same for 10 minutes before Warren Gatland made wholesale changes, introducing four of his big guns in Bradley Davies, Mike Phillips, Stephen Jones and Tom Shanklin.
They had an almost immediate impact when Lee Byrne looked to have scored. Wales went through several phases attacking the Fijian line before the ball was spread to Byrne. He ignored the unmarked North outside him and looked to have scored only for TMO Daniel Gillet to rule out the effort.
Wales showed their power in the resulting scrum and were awarded a penalty try on 58 minutes after nine scrum resets.
Jones added the extras from in front of the posts to pull his side level at 13-all and just minutes later he gave Wales the lead with a simple penalty. But Bai struck with the final kick of the game.





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