There was so much to enjoy about Saturday night's pulsating match between the Maori All Blacks and Fiji played at the Rotorua International Stadium.

The 26-17 result was important as the Maori turned around a shock defeat to the Flying Fijians in Suva last week to ensure they did not suffer back-to-back defeats to their Pacific cousins for the first time since 1957.

Head coach for the Maori is one of Rotorua's most beloved rugby sons Clayton McMillan, who began his rugby career at Rotorua Boys', Whakarewarewa club and then 113 games for the Bay of Plenty Steamers.

So a home coming to Rotorua as head coach deserved to be rewarded with a victory and his team delivered.

Clayton had questioned the Maori team's desperation to give 100 per cent in the jersey after their lack of physicality was cruelly exposed by a fired-up Fijian side in the hot and humid conditions in Suva.

Dealing with adversity is all part of the make-up of being a professional rugby player so Clayton was pleased how his side lifted their game in Rotorua.

'There were some pretty hurt boys last week and I am just proud that they managed to lift themselves off the floor and grind out a pretty tough victory,” he says.

'You have to have a pretty thick skin and be pretty mentally tough to survive in this game. It wasn't perfect but I think we all saw there was a huge lift in intensity.

'I thought our set piece was sound. Late in the game we started to put them under some pressure and we got some reward there. It helped us relieve some territory pressure and that was good.”

First blood in the game went to the visitors after an audacious piece of skill from inspirational captain Dominiko Waqaniburotu, reminiscent of their Olympic champion sevens team, presented a try in the left corner. The conversion was expertly made but that 7-0 lead was about as close as Fiji came to winning the game as the big Maori forward pack took control.

The contest was evenly poised until the 60^th minute when the Maori jumped out to a 19-10 lead with a try finished off by Alex Nankivell before they extended out to 26-10 three minutes later with the match winning try to Isaia Walker-Leawere.

Halfback Bryn Hall and first-five Otere Black had excellent games while the Bay of Plenty players Nathan Harris, Mitch Karpik and Tom Franklin did their whanau and the jersey proud with impressive performances.

Maori captain Ash Dixon was pleased the extra intensity at training during the week paid off.

'The performance we put on last week we just weren't proud of at all. We knew we were up against it this week and had to put a bit of mahi (work) and get ourselves sorted.

'I am really happy how we went and am just glad we fronted a lot better than we did last week.”