TODAY, our national rugby team arrives at Nadi International Airport and we welcome the boys back home after the short hectic tour and we thank them for their efforts.
As much as we celebrate and share in your victories, we also share in your pain, so keep your heads up and keep that big Fijian smile beaming. All is not lost.
The most important factor is coming back with the win that mattered most — against Georgia — so that we still can accomplish the mission we had set out to achieve and that is to improve on our international standings.
Our officials and local amateur players will return much wiser and if there's anything we can do to turn this pain into a blessing, it is to do our homework by training harder in this off-season with a dose of 100 per cent of self belief. Our Fiji Rugby Union officials should now have a proper perspective on what measures we should take to solve our problems.
Overall, the players and rugby fans feel the same but we cannot change history.
In his famous World War II speech, former British prime minister Sir Winston Churchill once said something like, "Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
The target is the 2015 Rugby World Cup at the same venue and definitely there are still battles to fight to toughen us up for that big one three years from now. It is better to be whipped now then to be whipped then.
It is also just like a boxing match where we got knocked down just after the opening bell.
We did not see it coming and we had anticipated a toe-to-toe battle with the Englishmen.
But Alas! We got whipped badly in the first round with a knockout punch and saw many Twickenham, Twickenham little stars, up above the world so high.
In fact, it was a low blow because of the circumstances surrounding the French Connection sabotaging our preparations.
But luckily, we beat the count and fought back to end the round strongly coming back with two tries as if to remind the hosts of our real capability had our fortunes been otherwise.
The second round saw us standing our ground against Gloucester and we were ahead on points but pipped just before the bell.
We were only saved by the bell against Ireland but we came off with many positives that lifted our game and we should not be too harsh on ourselves.
I think the current Ireland rugby team will win the Six Nations next season and their speed and agility is a revelation.
Ireland A winger Craig Gilroy, the man with the elusive and Jack-in-the-Box type of ability to dance past tackles, scored two tries for Ireland. He scored three against Fiji.
They scored seven tries against Argentina with the Pumas coming in with two late tries to add some respectability to the scores.
In the fourth round we put our act together against Georgia and showed guts and spirit to come back with a win despite trailing at half-time.
Because of our many disadvantages in team preparations compared to the major rugby powers, we can only do so at Rugby World Cups every four years.
We can also be consoled by the fact that we are not the only rugby playing nation looking for answers.
England, Wales and Scotland are also suffering the same having had a string of losses in the past couple of weeks.
It comes as great news that the International Rugby Board is looking into the French clubs who have breached contractual agreement regarding our players not to play for Fiji in the Rugby World Cup by paying extra to retain them for their clubs instead.
We are a bit like former Canadian Commonwealth lightheavyweight boxing champion Gary Summerhays who fought Tony Mundine in that epic battle in Melbourne in 1978.
Summerhays had been pounded around the ring for 10 solid rounds having won only one. He pleaded with his cornermen to let him go just one more round after they were about to throw in the towel.
Mundine, the father of the current boxer of the same name, was a beautiful puncher. He threw combinations in flurries and continued to do so in the 11th round but the Canadian hung on with his back to the ropes.
In between those Mundine combinations, Summerhays threw a right and sent the Aussie reeling.
A second right to the jaw sent Mundine through the first and second rope, knocking him out or the ring.
The Canadian absorbed all the pounding from round one to round eleven and packed them into two cracking punches.
Someone once said that the greatest glory in living lies not in never falling but in rising everytime we fall.