Seremaia Bai struck a penalty with the last kick of the game to earn Fiji a 16-16 draw against a dour Wales at the Millennium Stadium.

The hosts came into their third Test of the autumn internationals on a run of five consecutive defeats and were seeking to turn some promising displays over the last couple of weekends into a much-needed victory.

They trailed 13-6 at the interval courtesy of Albert Vulivuli's try and, despite creeping in front around the hour mark through a penalty try, they could not close out the game and were duly punished by the boot of Bai.

Wales made four changes from the side which lost to South Africa, while eight fresh faces came into the Fiji line-up after their 34-12 defeat in France last weekend.

The opening exchanges were scrappy and errors all too plentiful.

George North showed flashes of the pace and talent which had captured the Welsh public's imagination on his debut, but too many men around him were off their best in a drab first half.

Fiji lived up to expectations, making countless crunching tackles and playing an extremely powerful brand of rugby, except at the scrum, where the Wales pack looked a cut above their opponents.

Wales took the lead with an early penalty from Dan Biggar, but Bai levelled shortly afterwards.

Bai took his aggression too far, making a dreadful spear tackle on winger Andrew Brew and earning a yellow card, allowing Biggar to kick Wales back into the lead.

But the Fijian defence held firm for the 10 minutes they were without their fly-half, equalising once again through stand-in kicker, the full-back Josh Matavesi.

The mistakes continued to flow, and it was no surprise that an error facilitated the opening try. Rees missed a Jonathan Thomas tip from a lineout, allowing Sisa Koyamaibole to surge for the line. Held up short, he found support quickly and Vulivuli swept over to give the visitors the lead.

The crowd were silenced, and it might still have been worse had Vereniki Goneva held on to an interception shortly after the restart which would have left the Wales defence stranded.

The second half began as error-strewn as the first and Wales coach Warren Gatland soon lost patience, making a quadruple change by bringing on the experienced Stephen Jones, Mike Phillips, Bradley Davies and Tom Shanklin.

The performance threatened to improve, and a well-worked move culminated with Lee Byrne getting within a hair's breadth of the line after 54 minutes.

The decision went upstairs to the television referee, who deliberated a long time before saying that the full-back had been held up by the determined Gabirieli Lovobalavu.

One opportunity passed, but the resulting scrum on the five metre line went Wales' way.

Time and again the Fiji scrum collapsed, and after almost five minutes of desperate scrummaging, the referee Jerome Garces saw fit to award the hosts a penalty try.

Jones converted from under the posts, and then struck a penalty minutes later to put the Welsh back in front.

Wales had dominated second-half territory, but when the visitors surged upfield with just three minutes remaining they took their chance.

The forwards piled on the pressure over and over again, and despite Matavesi waiting in the pocket for a drop goal the Fijians ignored him to secure a penalty in front of the posts instead in the 82nd minute.

Bai struck it over to earn a draw that the Fijians' aggressive performance merited.

There was little, however, for the home crowd to take heart from as their side prepare to take on world rugby's form side, New Zealand, next weekend.

Mark Patterson / Eurosport