A bye week in week one of the Pacific Nations Cup will aid in amplifying the FIJI Water Flying Fijians’ preparations, especially in getting the local and overseas-based players in sync for the competition.
This is the word from head coach Mick Byrne following the announcement of the competition recently.
“We’ve been fortunate that we’ve been drawn a bye week to start, given that we have our overseas players coming in,” Byrne stated.
“It will be good because we’ve got that bye week so the overseas players will come in.”
He added the overseas-based players will arrive on the weekend of the bye week and a week of getting together with the local-based players to prepare themselves for their first match against Tonga will follow.
“It just means we can probably spend a couple of training sessions working on some combinations and getting to know how we all work together without having to play that weekend,” he said.
With a bye week before their first match, he reflected on the importance of how the team could prepare itself further.
“We’re really looking forward to starting our campaign with a bye week, get all our players in and work really hard,” he said.
“If there are a group of Northern Hemisphere players coming down, it would be great to give them an opportunity to get (over) the jet lag and establish themselves into Fiji again.”
Meanwhile, World Rugby chairman Brett Robinson told World Rugby of how the PNC was the fruition of the sporting body’s efforts in building up rugby to be a global game.
Fiji will face Tonga in its PNC match on August 30 at the HFC Bank Stadium in Suva.
