Fiji Sun

All falling into place for Kolinisau

- IOANE ASIOLI

Fiji Airways 7s men’s head coach Osea Kolinisau had his doing their hard yards at Albert Park, Suva, yesterday in their preparatio­n for the HSBC SVNS Singapore tournament from May 3-5.

“We are still working on our fitness, tackle techniques and patterns that we want to perfect,” he said.

“It’s good to see the new players in the mix as these are some of the boys from the Marist sevens.” Kolinisau said the team has been working to improve on their mistakes from the Hong Kong Sevens tournament.

“We are trying to keep the ball longer in possession as it will tire the opposition. I told the players that we don’t have to rush to score the try.”

Kolinisau said he intends to play the Fijian style of sevens rugby.. “It’s good to see how the players are starting to understand how I want them to play the game,” he said.

“In attack, they were trying to make the ground as big as possible and in defence we wanted to make it as small as possible.”

Olympic format

Kolinisau said the team would play three friendly matches against a visiting Japanese national sevens team.

“We’ll play in an Olympic format, as we’ll play on Friday, Saturday and Monday,” he said.

“The Japanese team wants to test out the format and it’s a good chance for me to observe the other players that didn’t go on tour.” Kolinisau said Terio Tamani and Kaminieli Rasaku have recovered from their injuries.

“A few of the players have sustained niggling injuries but it’s not serious so by next week we should be ready to go again,” he said.

“It’s good to have Iowane Teba as he is an experience­d player.” Kolinisau said he was glad to see veteran Jerry Tuwai up and running in the training session.

“We want to win a tournament and we’re working towards that. Hopefully when the Singapore sevens comes around, we’ll have a good weekend.”

 ?? Photo: Ronald Kumar ?? Fiji men’s rugby sevens hooker Manueli Maisamoa (wearing headgear) tussles for the ball during training at Albert Park, Suva, on April 18, 2024.
Photo: Ronald Kumar Fiji men’s rugby sevens hooker Manueli Maisamoa (wearing headgear) tussles for the ball during training at Albert Park, Suva, on April 18, 2024.

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