Fijiana 7s head coach Saiasi Fuli says lack of possession and communication resulted in their 22-5 loss to New Zealand in the opening match of the Mini International 7s Tournament at Albert Park in Suva today.
“It’s a good game for us. We just started training three weeks ago and we need to play rugby. It’s good that we played a top team like New Zealand in our first game.”
“The biggest let down today is that we didn’t control much of our possession. It was like a 50-40 percentage and we need to take control of possession more and also stay connected.”
Fuli said the team will regroup and work on their ball possession as they aim to bounce back in their second match against France at 1 pm today.
“We have another six weeks to prepare for the Oceania and Pacific Games. It’s good that we started today even though we are in a good condition to play much competition.”
“Going forward, this is the right direction in how we want to qualify for the Olympics in November.”
“We have two squads and we’ll try to balance the team. We’ll maximise the tournament by utilising most of our girls’ playing time, game time and exposure as much as we can against the top 7s teams.”
Fuli is also monitoring the performance of his senior players alongside the 11 fresh legs in the team who will also be given enough game time at the two day tournament.
“Coming back from a two month break, this is a good platform for us to play rugby. We will continue to improve from here and work towards the Oceania and Pacific Games in November.”
“We have 31 players and we will try to utilise all of them this week and next week. We know that only 12 out of the 31 will go for the international series and not all.”
“But this is the best place to test our young players coming from the Marama and Raluve championship. Opportunities like this do not come often and we tend to include the young guns and expose them in such an environment.”
