COVID-19 gives tough challenge for Fiji rugby, players

THE past six months hasn’t been ideal for Fiji rugby’s programs and competition because of the second phase of the COVID-19 in the country.

As a result Fiji Rugby Union did not commence its domestic 15s season which is now unlikely to be played.

Fiji Rugby general manager high performance Simon Raiwalui said the players in the high performance unit had been working on their daily programs from home.

Raiwalui said the strength and conditioning staff under the leadership of Nacanieli Cawanibuka were monitoring the players.

“Obviously the past six months hasn’t been ideal for preparations for rugby across all our programs,” the former Flying Fijians captain said.

“The inactivity has been difficult but we have been working with our high performance players.

“They have daily programs that they have been working on from home, since they could not come into a high performance gymnasium.

“Our strength and conditioning staff under Naca (Nacanieli Cawanibuka) have been very creative and created programs that can be done at home.

A majority of the local based have been chosen for the Fijian Drua squad for the inaugural Super Rugby Pacific competition next year.

Raiwalui said the Fijian Drua had a long preparation period for the new competition.

“We will not be starting from zero and we have more than three months to prepare.

“We have started now so we have the rest of October, November, December, January and February.

“So we have a long lead-up into Super Rugby Pacific competition. We started earlier than other teams.

“All other teams will be starting in the middle of December and we are starting earlier because we know the situation that we are in.

“There will be a heavy emphasis on getting ready for playing and getting our running capacity up.

“Everything is returned to training with protocols in place so things are very well planned out.

“We totally understand the situation that is in front of us as it is going to be a challenge.

“We are up to the challenge because we have been waiting for 20 to 25 years for this opportunity.

“We have been waiting to go into a professional environment as a Fijian team.

“So we are going to take this opportunity with both hands and run right from the first day.”