The vigorous training run the Fiji 7s team has been going through will see the boys hit their peak come Rio.

Fiji 7s coach Ben Ryan wants a squad that will go into Rio, ready, fit and fresh.

This is the Englishman’s reason for underpreparing the team in the 2015/16 HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series.

“It’s my tenth year on the series and I can promise you, every year the series finishes, every player and coach is physically spent,” Ryan said.

Ryan said with this 2015/16 series having more tournaments, a wrong move in their program could kill their game as players get more fatigued.

“We cannot have that and we have underprepared the team on purpose. They are all bigger than they will be in Rio. All have more skin fold fat than they will have in Rio. They are in great shape at the moment, thanks in large parts to Naca (Cawanibuka) but they will be even better in Rio.

“You train them too hard now and they will get over fatigued,” he said.

For someone who studied all this, he says, this is a common case in Fiji where teams are playing too much and training for too long and the players just get burnt out and underperform.

“I don’t want to pick out certain clubs but there are some that could be so much more successful if they understood this all better.

“Our “process” goals are to continue to progress and develop as a team. There are things we work on in training that we will not really roll out until Rio.

We constantly strive to get better, surprise teams and develop our attack and defence.

“So I’ll take the critics that tell me what to do and try to pick holes in all of us. No worries at all. With what we are doing, to be number one and ahead on the points we got last season is remarkable.”

He added they intend to rest and rotate more players over the next few months for all the reasons given “so I expect those same critics will have plenty to chat about”.