Ratave ‘not as

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SWIRE Shipping Fijian Drua coach Mick Byrne has admitted that as much as he would want robust winger Onisi Ratave to get more game time in Super Rugby Pacific, his condition doesn’t allow him to.

The man from Rewa has scored five tries in eight outings, four games of which he came off the bench.

Four of his tries were scored when he started a match.

Ratave came on in the last quarter of the second spell in the match against the Highlanders last week and impressed with his line breaks and running metres.

Byrne said he would have loved to give the Namosi flyer more game time but there were reasons he could not.

In last week’s game against the Highlanders, Ratave spent less than seven minutes on the field.

“He will be the first to admit. He is not as fit as he’d like to be. At the moment we see him to provide us the exciting opportunity of coming off the bench and give us that 20-25 minutes of explosiveness that he possesses,” Byrne said.

“At the moment he may be carrying a couple of niggling injuries but we still want him to provide us with what he can.”

The Fijian Drua coach added replacement calls were made judging game situations.

“When you look back five or 10 minutes earlier, but at the same time when you’re making a decision when the game is tight the players are in the game they feel the game, you make a judgment call.

“You sort of go with trusting the players that are in the game at the time that there’s a feel going on out there so there’s always that answer in insight that sometimes it’s different in real life.”

Ratave is again expected to come off the bench in the match against the Hurricanes at 3.35pm tomorrow.