Don’t count our women out
Our Fijiana Sevens team have showed at the PacificAus Sports Oceania Sevens competition that they could be one of the medal contenders at the Tokyo Olympic Games in Japan.
The Saiasi Fuli- coached side finished third in the competition. They were tied 10 points all with defending Olympic Games women’s gold medal champions, Australia.
The Fijiana had beaten the Aussies 19-12 during the competition and twice took care of the Oceania side, which consisted of players from the Australian women’s second team.
They also led 14-0 against New Zealand but the Kiwis fought back to win.
The next three weeks, is crucial in terms of preparation as Fuli and assistant coach, Timoci Volavola, fine-tune the 13-member squad so they are at their best come the Olympics.
There were three observations on the team’s performance in Townsivlle that need to be addressed:
Attitude of senior players: Apart from co-captain, Rusila Nagasau, Raijeli Daveua and Viniana Riwai, the rest of the senior players failed to perform to their best. Are they holding back for Tokyo? If not, then they must do something quick to get back on track
Need to have possession: After we shocked New Zealand with an early 14-0 lead, they simply countered by denying us possession
and romped away to a big win. Again, in our second encounter, they kept on it.
From the little possession that came our way in the second half we managed to score twice.
Stop tackles: Probably, this could be due to inexperience but our reluctance to ground New Zealand’s Portia Woodman with stop tackles saw her score tries after tries in our two matches.
Our women must be reminded of the importance of making their stop tackles count as this could enable them to win turnover balls.
Who we play in Tokyo
The Fijiana 7s team are drawn in a tough Pool B, which is the only group without an Olympic debutant.
The top seeds are Canada who won the bronze medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics along with France and Brazil.
France are in top form after they won the World Rugby Sevens repechage in Monaco, last month.
Brazil qualified after a 28-15 win over Colombia in the South American qualifier.