Fiji coach Rob Sherman revealed that pressing hard through their forwards helped them beat the Solomon Islands 3-0 and advance into the final of the OFC Men’s Olympics Qualifier in New Zealand on Wednesday.
Sherman admitted that while fatigue crept in the early minutes of the game, by opting to press hard, they were able to sustain Solomon’s midfield play.
“Extremely proud, they’ve worked really hard but you can see the fatigue level creeping in and they stuck at it and came through.”
“We wanted to press a little bit more since they rotated their midfield play which was causing a little problem so we fixed that and just more composure on the ball because at times we couldn’t move the play.”
“The boys brought in fine crossing and delivery. We treated the defence as a problem but pleased with the progress we made.”
Sherman also said they will need to fix the little things such as ball possession and defensive play ahead of the final against defending champs and host nation New Zealand on Saturday.
“First we need to recover,” he added.
“New Zealand is obviously the favourite side and they caused us problems in some areas and we’ll rectify that.”
“Hopefully if we control our possessions a little bit, we can cause some problems.”
The final between Fiji and New Zealand will kick off at 7pm at the North Harbour Stadium.
