Give Gollings a chance
IF you are an ardent rugby fan … boy! … the past two weekends would have been painful watching how the Fiji 7s team performed in Hamilton and Sydney in the World Sevens Series.
Our side flew out of the blocks well in Hamilton in front of crazy fans on the opening day and looked smart in pool play but whatever happened overnight and on Sunday morning is anyone’s guess because Sunday was a disaster.
The team struggled against Argentina as Santiago Gomez Cora’s men, who were in tip-top shape, suffocated the Fijians and the Los Pumas went on to win the Hamilton cup.
I managed to send a few messages to some key rugby men who are well-versed with the Fiji 7s set-up and they all had high hopes post-Hamilton that we could bounce back in Sydney in five days.
I don’t have the insights concerning recovery for the players and what sort of training took place but I’d like to mention that I learned more about New Zealand and South Africa because their social media teams put timely updates of their men’s and women’s teams for their fans to follow.
Sunday choke again
All eyes were on Sydney after the disappointment in Hamilton. There was talk about keeping the consistency in performance, how our side needed to finish in the top four to automatically qualify for the Paris Olympics, et cetera.
Again, no complaints as Waisea Nacuqu’s men piled the points against Tonga and Japan with our side reduced to six men against the latter for the whole of the second half. The test came against France in the final pool encounter but was well withstood by the Fijian warriors before they shut the gates on Great Britain in the top eight.
The trouble on Sunday has become a monkey on the back for Ben Gollings and his troupe. Like in Hamilton, South Africa turned up last Sunday afternoon in Sydney to burn all our hopes of redemption with a fiery performance. Our side couldn’t match the fierceness, skillset and smartness of the Boks.
It’s the Sunday choke yet again, Hamilton, Sydney and make that three times in the current series including that heartbreaking Hong Kong 7s cup final 17-20 loss to Australia.
Social media started buzzing as many fans called for the coach, Ben Gollings’ head. But from experience, his predecessors, Ben Ryan and Gareth Baber, also went through a span of losses and disappointments as they tried to get the mix right and delivered gold at the Olympics, which was the main KPI in their contract.
I have confidence in Gollings and, I believe, he has good control of the situation on the side and he’ll get better to deliver better results with the ultimate goal – Paris 2024 Olympics Gold.
What went wrong in the Sydney semifinal?
It was all about basic errors in defence play, lapses of concentration at crucial times of the game and most of all, not being able to think properly and buckling under pressure with decision-making that affected the Fijians in the Sydney semifinal.
My longtime rugby friend, French national Franck Boivert, is one of the best technical gurus in the game and is renowned to have coached teams in the US, France and for the past two decades-plus, Fiji.
He helped me in getting some technical play scripted and we both agreed that poor defence and failing to execute play under pressure were the main downfall in the team’s failure in that one all-important loss in Sydney.
South Africa’s first try saw our defender outside the rover when he should have been inside the man in defence.
The second Bok try had three of our players trying to defend against the same opposition player. South Africa opted for a scrum inside our 22, the SA halfback ran to the left and that was Jerry Tuwai’s man while our wing should have shifted and rushed to their wing to apply pressure in defence but, instead, had his eyes on the halfback and when the playmaker also came that way, we had three defending one.
In another SA try, there was a wrong basic play where you never play spread-out rugby under pressure with a long pass against a spread defence but execute short passes which are called the group game.
Simply, as most teams would do, play spread out on a group defence and kick on a flat defence.
Our breakdown play was exposed and, at times, we tried to flood that area of the game but smart play by SA saw them win penalties or turnovers.
In line-outs, during the SA throw, our defender stood in front of the SA jumper, our player couldn’t see what the SA jumper was going to do; thus by not being on the inside shoulder of the opposition jumper, we had no chance in that lineout.
New kicks are an Achilles heel for the Fijians and failing to put ourselves in front of their receivers was going to be a difficult long day in that area. I guess Joseva Talacolo was missed in the aerial battle and that’s an area of play that should improve in the next tournament.
Watching that game v South Africa, at times I questioned if our players had recovered well enough from that tough Hamilton outing and whether they were mentally prepared for pressure rugby in Sydney.
While it was a bad show v South Africa, some two hours later, Fiji turned on the magic in a great performance and slashed the French in the bronze medal match. Funny? Some say the Fijians are like the Suva weather — rain and shine at the same hour on any given day.
What matters is that we failed against South Africa where small details counted which rugby coaches refer to as attention to detail at a very high level – now that’s what makes the difference.
I am certain that Gollings, Vili Satala, and his band of helpers are back at the drawing board and looking at perfecting preparations in the three weeks that remain ahead of the next dance in Los Angeles towards the end of the month.
It’s been a long time between Ws for Fiji 7s. We last won at the Toulouse, France stop on the World Series last year and in the new series, our side has a silver and a bronze to show in the five tournaments.
The focus remains to finish in the top four in the standings and clinch that berth for Paris 2024nothing short of that — everyone who loves rugby knows that too well.
All the best Fiji 7s for the LA and Vancouver tournaments.