Mental Preps Vital: Baber
Mental preparation is vital for young members of the Fiji Airways Fijian 7s team if they are to play in the 2019/20 HSBC World Seven Series, says head coach Gareth Baber.
The Welshman said players need to go through the mental preparation process if they are to perform well against big teams during the series.
“I use my mental team to prepare the boys and especially the young ones in this kind of situation,” Baber said.
“We brought in a mental expert Jay Hedley who spent some time with us. So he got to the bottom of it and found out that these young Fijian players grew up with the idea that the All Blacks are the best team in the world.” Baber said with this view they tend to see the New Zealand players as big icons in their big jerseys that will come and run on top of them.
“We try to break that myth and we sort of got back to the basics of that view by doing the visualisation processes with the group. “We got players to visualise the New Zealand players as small boys. “These are some strategies we use to take away these myths. We had to do something when we play against New Zealand.
“There are two sides to that. There’s one element where the pressure gets too much and the player decides to hide the other one is when the players want to use their emotions in dominating the game.”
Baber said that it’s always a challenge for any Fijian player making his debut at the series to perform well in the group stages only to underperform against bigger teams later in the tournament.
BROADCASTING RIGHTS
Meanwhile, World Rugby has announced that Television Limited has secured the rights to broadcast the live coverage of the next four seasons of the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series on it’s free to air channel: Fiji One.
The HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series 2020 features eight women’s tournaments – a record number for the women’s competition – and 10 men’s. Six of the events this season are combined men’s and women’s events, with the first dual event taking place in Dubai on December 5-7.
Olympic gold medallists Fiji were crowned world champions in the 2019 men’s series, winning five of the 10 tournaments.
The USA claimed the runners-up spot – their highest ever finish on the series – after a podium finish in all but three tournaments last season with New Zealand taking the bronze medal.
In the women’s competition it was New Zealand who took the top spot in 2019, winning gold in four of the six tournaments. The USA joined their male counterparts in second place.