Private Ryan’s
Fiji’s sevens players used to hide in bushes to avoid Englishman Ben Ryan’s training methods. Now they watch what they eat and drink and the whole island loves him, reports Owen Slot.
PROBABLY the No 1 celebrity in Fiji is an Englishman. He is red-haired and his skin wasn’t made for the sun. But they love him so much that there have been babies named after him and a rock song released about him. He also has his own TV programme; he is asked to judge Miss Fiji; and even though he drives a standard Hyundai, his car is recognised and mobbed if he drives around Suva, the capital. This is Ben Ryan, born in Wimbledon, celebrated in Fiji. Who knows what they will make of him there if he guides Fiji to their first Olympic medal?
From the day that sevens was admitted to the Olympics, it was apparent that Fiji, after 15 Olympic ducks, might finally open their account on the medal table. In fact, Ryan will only really be happy with gold. Fiji certainly weren’t favourites when he arrived from England three years ago. On his first day, he did fitness testing with the squad he had inherited and the highest score in testing was his own. And he was 42.
After their first tournament, he decided to smash them in training with a succession of 100-metre runs up and down their training pitch. After just one, he found Seremaia Tuwai, one of his star players, hiding behind a bush. But they then won their second tournament, in Dubai, and Ryan’s legend – and something of a cultural revolution – began to take root.
Fiji had never had a foreign coach before. They had never, for instance, had anyone to tell the players what to eat. The breakfast buffets at tournament hotels are the worst, Ryan says. In Dubai, he recalls one player piling his plate with eight eggs and eight pains au chocolat. ‘‘I said: ‘What are you doing?’ He says, ‘Eggs are good, bread’s good, no?’.’’ So they were educated to have a lot of colour on their plates. Not just white – rice and pasta, with ketchup. Colours equal fruit and veg. ‘‘Now, they come and show me their plate and ask, ‘Is this all right?’’’
They all get it now, though Tuwai is addicted to chocolate. When they are away, he knocks on Ryan’s door and asks him for it. ‘‘I took him to the dentist,’’ Ryan recalls, ‘‘because he needed
Once you show the boys something, they get it instantly. BEN RYAN
eight teeth extracted. We sat him in the chair, he got terrified and ran away. Before the next tournament, I said, ‘If you don’t go, you’re not selected.’ ‘‘
Initially, Tuwai would often be a no-show at training. ‘‘So I’d drive round to where he lives,’’ Ryan says, ‘‘and he’d be playing volleyball on the roundabout. I’d say, ‘You should be at training.’ And he’d say, ‘I didn’t want to.’
‘‘That’s a world-class player, and he hadn’t made the connection between training and playing.’’
They all get that now too. Ryan has had to buy into the culture he himself set. When he says no drinking after tournaments, he means it, not even a couple of relaxing beers. ‘‘It’s island mentality,’’ he explains. ‘‘If it’s there, it’ll all go.’’
This year, he brought in a breathalyser and on mornings after tournaments, when they were doing pool recovery, he’d pick on three of them. They knew the rules: you test positive, you’re gone. ‘‘Now they know, they laugh,’’ Ryan says.
When they see him coming, they say: ‘‘I’ll have a go.’’
Likewise, no phones at tournaments. Why were so many of his players tired at tournaments, he asked himself. Because the hotels have free WiFi and so they were on Facetime and Facebook all hours. So they all hand their phones in. Ryan too. The first time they did it, they won the tournament.
For the Olympic campaign, they’ll be phone-less 10 days before it even starts.
Slowly, slowly, they have come to understand what he is bringing to them. He, too, has understood what they were bringing to him.
These are uncoached players whose talent has been honed on beaches and scrubland. Why have Fijians long been so poor at the breakdown? Because they don’t do the breakdown on the beach. Why have they never been good at long passing? Because the ‘‘balls’’ they play with tend to be bottles filled with sand, and that encourages short passes and offloads. Why did they always tackle high? Because with everyone offloading, the defenders want the ball, not the players’ legs. And kicking? No chance, not with those sand-filled bottles.
Yet what Ryan also found was a nation so engrossed in sevens that knowledge and understanding of the game was immense. World series sevens tournaments are played on loop on national television.
Saturday night must-watch television is Ryan’s rugby programme when he teaches technique such as the lineout lift.
So that cliche about Fijians being so naturally gifted is only partly true. The reason they stand apart is because they play endlessly. Wi-Fi is scarce. Therefore the kids play outside and sevens is their game of choice.
This, according to Ryan, makes them uniquely intelligent rugby players: ‘‘What they have which is better than anyone else