WHILE our Flying Fijians have been praised for the improvements in scrums and line-outs in the 2015 Rugby World Cup in England they will have to improve on their attacking strategies to be able to score more tries against tier one nations.
That is the view of professional rugby coach Nacanieli Saumi, the first Fijian to be director and head coach of a top division club in a tier one Nation.
Saumi is back in the country after being director and head for Plymouth Albion Rugby Football Union in England and is a World Rugby (IRB} Level IV coach.
He has shared some of his views on Fijian rugby in an interview with Times Sport as we count down the final days of 2015.
Saumi praised the work done by John McKee’s coaching team in the improvements of our scrums and line-outs but we can go up another dimension in 2019 in Japan.
“The Fiji Rugby Union has already stipulated its intention of establishing set piece coaching at grassroots level and there is more work to be done from now on,” he said.
Saumi pointed out that our attacks lacked the thrust to break defensive lines.
“One of the major setbacks for our national team was their weakness in attack during matches.
“There was laxity in their approach to attacking rugby on set and phase plays as players displayed a sense of unfamiliarity in their patterns of play whilst contributing to a high number of slow ball plays.
“This enabled oppositions to accelerate defensive line organisation as we lose forward momentum and the only option was to kick the ball to gain yardage whilst giving away possession.”
He also pointed out that we were a bit short on the overall fitness department.
“The Flying Fijians seem to tire after five phases as slow ball tend to be repetitious questioning their fitness or fatigue as most of our players play their rugby in the northern hemisphere.
“Strong, undeniably, but the days when brute strength and power win you anything are long gone.
“Wales and Australia in our pool looked exceptionally fit to me.”
* Read the 1st of a three part interview on on PAGE 23.
