Fiji is in Sevens Heaven after winning gold in rugby for the second straight time on Wednesday.
It was a tactical master-class.
Execution timed perfect to the second as Fiji pummeled the sevens world in Tokyo and sent her crazy fans into a frenzy – they won gold in style in Tokyo but the glitter was at home.
Our small nation has been grappling against the coronavirus pandemic with daily announcements of over a thousand positive cases plus total deaths of close to 200.
Yet, our people put all that aside when we won in Tokyo and broke into cheers, fi reworks lit up the night skies, there was dancing in the streets, villages and towns – I thought we had a curfew restriction? Who said so, no one stops us celebrating a good sevens victory – anything is possible and even the lawmakers let that slip under the radar, well I hope no one got arrested or fined for celebrating peacefully on Wednesday night. We deserved some of that and hope the atmosphere remains bright for a little while at least.
Coach Gareth Baber knows what the win means for the people in the country, he got back to the games village after guiding the team to the historic victory and recorded a video acknowledging that the situation in Fiji was the basis of their foundation over the three days at the Tokyo Stadium battlefield, a stadium built on a former US military base.
Fiji 7s were unstoppable. They created history in the rugby world and secured their second successive gold medal success in a pulsating 27-12 final win over perennial rivals New Zealand at the biggest sporting event on the planet, the Olympic Games.
I think no one summed it better, “The win was worth more than gold”, wrote the president of the Fiji Rugby Union, Prime Minister Voreqe Bainimarama.
Our players endured a lot, separated from family and loved ones for up to five months while preparing for the Olympics gold defence, the Fijian warriors stood the tallest in the Land of the Rising Sun.
Reports surfaced that Tuwai wanted to jump camp as he missed his children – that is just the tip of what the team went through in perhaps the toughest preparation ever for a major tournament.
I watched a video about an hour before the final where Tuwai’s children, Lani and Jone, recorded a message for their father whom they hadn’t seen for four months. Talk about individual sacrifices, the pain wrapped in it, the dramas behind the curtains – I can imagine how that fi red up the skipper ahead of the final. In my preview to the Olympics, I mentioned how maestro Waisale Serevi always said that children are the sevens team’s most loyal supporters.
If you don’t believe me about how passionate children are, social media went viral hours before the final with people sharing a picture where two children sat on a village green some distance away from a house watching the semi-final match on a TV which was inside the house with a passage view from a narrow doorway.
I picked a dream final at the Olympics and it did come true.
Rugby is the national sport in Fiji and New Zealand but sevens means more to the Fijians than anyone else in the world, in the afternoons every school and village field or grass patch clearing will see Fijians playing touch where they hone their instinctive passing and one-handed off-loads, mostly barefoot and sometimes using a plastic bottle or coconut as a rugby ball. It builds in our system from an early age.
Starved of international rugby
After nearly 17 months of no international competition plus battling with COVID-19 restrictions, coach Gareth Baber and captain Jerry Tuwai led the team through the campaign which got only one warm-up event in Townsville at the Oceania tournament.
But that’s what the world knows, credit goes to the Fiji Rugby Union for organising the local sevens series where our side had the much needed hit-out, including the other club-organised tournaments, namely Uluinakau and Uprising events.
When the going got tough, you could notice that most teams looked rusty and quite rightly so because most of them trained together but didn’t get solid international opposition to test their wits for nearly a year and a half.
Fiji’s golden show wasn’t the cutest of them all but they proved strong, fi t and outmuscled the opposition with ease from the third game onwards. My word, there were worries all round especially after a sloppy start on
Day 1 against Japan and Canada. But when the team switched on, that was it. Beating class opposition starting with GB, followed by Australia in the quarter-final, Argentina in the semi-final and World Cup champs New Zealand in the final. Their tactics and execution worked just enough against the opposition.
Hail King Jerry
Fiji is unbeaten in Olympics history, a dozen games on the trot and the only team to bag gold medals at the world showpiece event. Jerry Tuwai becomes the only rugby player in the world to have two Olympics gold medals and has earned the title of King Jerry Tuwai. I associate JT to what Michael Jordan is to basketball and USA.
In his own words about a year ago, JT said, “Rugby can change anyone”, it has certainly done that to the Buca, Cakaudrove man, whose return is eagerly awaited by his family, loved ones and his dear friends in Newtown – where the kava hasn’t stopped flowing and won’t stop until they welcome their hero home soon – perhaps a rather longer wait than usual as he has to go through 14 days of quarantine before heading home.
He has ‘knife’ and ‘fork’ written on his boots, a story worth rewinding to inspire the young generation – Jerry’s mum saved money to buy him boots and told him that was his knife and fork, go farm with that and earn a living.
There are many Fijian boys running around not knowing where they’ll end up in this rugby world but if you hit it right, have the talent and work hard – rugby is in our DNA and the world knows and respects that about the Flying Fijians.
The skipper dropped out of school, like his idol, Serevi, but their talent and rugby has taken them around the world and the world knows their name.
Isn’t that great to inspire the next generation? For Jerry, the young man who hated to train but can’t stop now is the darling of all Fijians after leading Fiji to a historic gold medal win in Tokyo.
He and coach Baber got the monkey off their backs after the disappointment of 2018 on the Gold Coast (Commonwealth Games) and at San Francisco (World Cup 7s) to combine yet again to rise to glory some 7200 kilometres away from home soil in Tokyo.
Future
Jerry, 32, could be around with Paris 2024 not far away – how about that for a thought for a three-peat? Plus he has some unfinished business when it comes to that country elusive Commonwealth Games gold and the other title that he hasn’t touched yet – the Melrose Cup (World Cup) – in his reach to target in Cape Town next year. I guess he has it in those legs and his heart to go on – he wins gold in Commonwealth and lifts the Melrose Cup – he’ll become the most decorated rugby player to live in this modern era – didn’t I say hail King JT and don’t put it past him of aiming to be on that flight to Paris in three years.
And I hope the FRU employs the genius as the manager of a rugby 7s program so he can help grassroots and elite level players in shaping their game and future in the sport that has seen him have the world at his feet which in turn will see the humble Fijian servant earn a living from the game that has given him and the country glory and enable him to give a sound platform and upbringing for his children.
Home sweet home
Our victorious side arrived home yesterday without the coach who went to the UK to see his family and three players who have returned to their club duties in Bristol and France. It’ll be hard to top the celebrations of 2016 when the Government declared a national holiday and the Reserve Bank printed $7 notes to commemorate Fiji’s first Olympics gold medal.
But what our players are looking forward to is to get united with family and loved ones after a long separation, forget about rugby for a while – how long, I wonder. To think about it, they have six weeks before the 2021 World Sevens Series kicks off in Vancouver, 19th and 20th September.
For now, I hope you’re treated as kings in quarantine and hope you get through it and go home soon to a well-deserved hero’s welcome to the people who love you the most –– win or lose –– your family.
Credit also to the leadership at the FRU, the board members and the chief executive officer for the vision and support for the team. And a big shout out to trainer Nacanieli Cawanibuka for making sure the players were in top shape physically and mentally and physio William Koong, both have done the same for two Olympics and team manager Jone Niurua for being the back-room support for Gareth over the years.
And not forgetting our golden heroes –– all the boys –– the future of 7s looks bright because most of them will be around for a long while and this experience will help them guide others who’ll join the journey in this sevens circle of life.
It’s hard to imagine one gold then coming to terms a second with an overflow of national pride and self-boast that a country with 900,000 people is the King of World Rugby and no one can dispute that until Paris 2024.
Sayonara Japan – Bonjour Paris.
- SATISH NARAIN is a sports commentator with FBC and the views expressed in this article are his and not of The Fiji Times.
