at the 1975 South Pacific Games the national team, under coach Sashi Mahendra Singh, made the semi-finals of the competition where they lost to Tahiti. In the third-place playoff, they lost to the Solomon Islands by a goal. After John Lal became the new coach for Fiji in 1977, his first match as coach was an unofficial game against Taiwan which ended in a two-all draw before taking on Australia who played Taiwan because of the soccer ban in the country. On 19 March 1977, they took on Australia at Buckhurst Park. Seven national players from Ba F.C. were unavailable due to a planned tour of New Zealand. After holding off the Australians for the first forty-five minutes, Jimmy Okete (who was making his debut) scored the only goal of the game. This was a shock to the locals since the team struggled in the two tours to Australia in 1961 and 1968 against the state teams. Under the orders of new coach, Moti Musadilal, they played some pre-tournament friendlies against New Zealand conceding nine goals in the two games before competing at the 1979 South Pacific Games in Suva. After getting a nil all draw against Papua New Guinea, they scored their biggest win against Kiribati winning by twenty-four goals. After defeating Wallis and Futuna in the quarter-finals and Solomon Islands in the semis, they made it to their second Pacific Games final against Tahiti. In front of over twenty thousand people, Fiji came up short again with Erroll Bennett scoring a double to give Tahiti the gold medal. Fiji's next tournament was the 1980 OFC Nations Cup where they were grouped with New Zealand, Solomon Islands and Tahiti. After defeating the Solomon Islands in the opening game, they were expected to lose against New Zealand who were the favourites to win the group. On 27 February 1980, they became the first Fijian team to defeat a New Zealand team with Dewan Chand and Meli Vuilabasa both scoring two goals in the victory. Fiji did not make it to the final. They lost first to Tahiti 6–3, and then lost the third-place playoff to New Caledonia 2–1, in what was the last Oceania Cup for sixteen years. The following year saw a new coach with former New Zealand coach Wally Hughes leading the team into their first World Cup qualifiers. After opening with a four-goal defeat against New Zealand,