Fiji’s performance

THOUGH an ardent sevens fan, I decided to watch the Flying Fijians in action after all the hype.

Unfortunately the Flying Fijians didn’t make it, though it was said that this was “the best team in the world”. We could have won all the pool games with such a line-up of outstanding and magnificent players.

It seems a number of factors contributed to this:

1. Too much self praise before the games as noted also by Ronnie Chang.

2. We seemed to have lost vigour towards the latter part of the game. Is it because of lack of mental toughness as noted by Ben Kush or lack of fitness? I am inclined to both of these possibilities. Other winning teams have used psychologist and we don’t seem to have one. The Kiwis are so good. How come? The lack of fitness seems to be because of insufficient time at the sand dunes. The team has been to the sand dunes maybe once as the media mentioned this once only. Unlike Ben Ryan who had used the dunes regularly.

3. Poor refereeing in the three games robbed us of any chances. This was admitted by WR (World Rugby) themselves. As noted by the esteemable Serevi, the referees tend to pick on the tier two nations.

4. As for the Uruguay game, the wholesale changes seemed strange and the lacklustre performance seemed very unusual for the best team in the world. Was it because of much social activity beforehand or lack of proper diet, poor management supervision, overconfidence or all of the above?

Having said all that, it seems that there has been much improvement since they had made the Wallabies and the Dragons run for their money. So the coach is not entirely to be blamed. So keep up the good work and plan for a better outcome come 2023! NORMAN YEE

Mehrotra Place, Martintar, Nadi