Wales made heavier work of it than they would have liked but prevailed 23-13 in an entertaining and sometimes breathless Pool A clash against Fiji yesterday to move to the brink of the Rugby World Cup quarter-finals.

Despite a crippling casualty list and being drawn in the toughest pool in the history of the tournament, the Welsh will head to their final Pool A match against Australia next weekend with three wins out of three.

After first-half tries from scrumhalf Gareth Davies and hooker Scott Baldwin, it looked like Wales would secure the four-try bonus that would have made their position even stronger and heaped more pressure on rivals England to beat Australia tomorrow.

A combination of Welsh fatigue and Fijian fitness, however, meant the home side failed to cross the line in the second half and were reliant on the faultless place-kicking of flyhalf Dan Biggar to usher them to victory.

Fiji scored the best try of the game through centre Vereniki Goneva and dominated the scrum but were left ruing Ben Volavola’s two misses from the kicking tee.

“Got to give great credit to Fiji, it was very tough. I was knackered in the first half,” Wales captain Sam Warburton said.

“But if someone had said before the start of the tournament we would have three wins from three you would have bitten their hand off for that.

“After the work we did last weekend we couldn’t throw it away.”

Other result: Pool D – France vs Canada 41-18.
Playing today: Pool C – 21.00 New Zealand vs Georgia.