Making sense of chaos
ALOT has been said about the national 7s side following defeats at the hands of Argentina and Uruguay recently. It hasn’t been a pleasant journey in the World Rugby 7s series for us.
In fact it has been tough, and fans haven’t really accepted the results.
Now as we look ahead to facing Argentina again, at the home of 7s rugby in Hong Kong, national coach Ben Gollings is already relishing the challenge.
The Pumas have had the upper hand over Fiji in the past two tournaments on the series, having won in Los Angeles and Vancouver.
We will meet again in Pool A at So Kon Po, and also have Samoa and Canada to contend with.
As Gollings said, it is good to want these games.
“In terms of this game (Hong Kong), you want the challenge to go back and play that team as soon as you possibly can. We’ll work hard now and we’ll relish that opportunity when we get to Hong Kong,” he said.
It’s a challenge fans will be keenly focused on as well as we count down the days to the Hong Kong 7s.
While many people were upset with the efforts of the national side, Gollings pointed at a long term plan.
That means focusing on Olympic Games qualification, and blooding rookies at the same time. The Olympics will be held in Paris next year.
“I’m fully aware of the fact that we’re not winning tournaments that we know we can go and win,” Gollings said.
“This is a time now we’ve got to try and test players because, after May, we have half a year that we don’t have international tournaments. There’s always the need and the want to win, but we have to balance that within the team – developing players, giving them the opportunity, managing the process, and rebuilding the squad.”
Fiji sits on fourth position on the series points table behind leaders New Zealand, Argentina and France.
In saying that, we reflect on our campaign so far and suggest that teams on the circuit have actually raised their standards.
They have closed the gap with the top guns so to speak. The advent of quality advanced visual aids has meant better analysis of opposition sides.
It has meant an upgrade of technical and tactical assistance.
Better dietary control of meals and supplements for players, combined with advanced training systems have actually improved performance on the field in terms of energy, physicality and subsequently productivity for many teams.
So we are looking at a scenario where teams have lifted their profiles, their standards and output.
Argentina showed they could defeat us by nullifying our strengths to some extent.
They could manipulate our defensive shape, keep it under pressure, and exploit loopholes.
So the onus is now on Gollings to raise our standards. That may mean improving our combinations, working on our defensive shape, and we hope we never forget our flair, our energy around the ball, broken play, pace, physicality, and our pushed passes!
We can maybe take some comfort in knowing it is never going to be easy to defend against an unorthodox side.
Did someone say something about controlled chaos? Or was it the beautiful chaos of Fijian rugby?
The question for us is do we have the will to make things happen? Do we have the calibre of players who are willing to carry the hopes and aspirations of an expectant nation? Die-hard fans will say, we do!