Integrity, commitment, trust, family and discipline are the values championed by the Fiji Airways Fiji men’s 7s team.
This was stated by head coach Osea Kolinisau, in his presentation at the FRU Symposium titled, “The Road to LA 2028, Fijian 7s Olympic Dream, Driven by Vuvale (family), United as One.”
He said the five values had a crucial role in their development as a team, stating it had contributed a lot to the way they performed.
“A lot of people, they think that the performance on the field is just ‘Oh, the boys didn’t train hard.’ But it has to do a lot with some of these core issues off the field that we need to translate into our game,” Kolinisau told attendees.
In helping extend his point across to the attentive audience, he shared how he reflected on their performance in their first season together as a team.
“And one thing I saw is we weren’t consistent with our cultures and values, like the boys choose when to uphold the culture or when to uphold the value,” he shared.
“And I said, it’s got to be an in-built thing in you and you’ve got to live it every day to have it consistent.”
These factors compelled him to raise it with management and have a discussion on it, mentioning how they lost matches since they were not consistent with their culture.
“And what we want and what we are trying to build is the boys living the culture where the coaches are around, managers around, where they live.
“The culture is part of them and it’s bone deep and built into each of the players that come through our rugby sevens family.”
His presentation also touched on the team’s Olympic goal for 2028.
Fiji men’s 7s head coach Osea Kolinisau. Picture: JONA KONATACI