The Fiji Warriors retained their title as the Pacific Rugby Cup Champions for a fifth year in a row, yesterday after the International Rugby Board (IRB) announced an early finish to the 2013 tournament.

The Pacific Rugby Cup is a competition between development teams from four Pacific countries: Junior Japan, Fiji Warriors, Tonga A and Samoa A.

Each team was required to tour Australia (First Leg) and to tour New Zealand (Second Leg) with various fixtures against Super 15 development teams. Both tours were completed in February and March with Fiji coming on top of the table, having suffered only two loses out of its six games. Tonga A lost all its games.

A third and final leg that was scheduled to take place in October was cancelled by the IRB and Fiji declared champions. The final leg would have seen all four teams playing against each other.

The IRB stated that the decision to cut short the competition was to make way for preparations for the upcoming November tours in Europe. Highly anticipated matches have been scheduled for touring Pacific rugby nations Tonga, Fiji, Samoa and Japan.

The ‘Ikale Tahi will be facing Romania, France and Wales, and the squad has yet to be announced.