ALARM bells are ringing after the national side fell short of winning the Vancouver 7s title yesterday and with the 2024 Olympic Games just 15 months away.
There were mixed feelings from fans and supporters after the side lost to Uruguay 14-17 in pool play and then to Argentina 14-19 in the cup quarter-finals and USA 19-24 in the fifth-place play-off – finishing for an equal eighth position.
Police 7s club coach Sale Tubuna said while he sympathised with head coach Ben Gollings, there needed to be more support for the Englishman and the players.
“The coach is doing his best, but he doesn’t have the full support. If we want to have a good result, we must first get the players secured – their contract, their welfare – and then we can see them perform,” Tubuna said.
“There is not much development done for sevens in the country. We should set up a high performance unit solely for the code.
“Sacking the coach won’t solve the issue here. Get a few top club coaches to work in the system.”
He said there was a lot of areas that needed to be looked at after watching the team in Vancouver.
“I believe the coach is trying to figure out a combination to achieve a win. I for one don’t like missed tackles and that is what I always emphasis to my team – we cannot defend well if we are missing tackles,” he said.
Former Fiji 7s selector Sailosi Naiteqe did not mince his words when he called for heads to roll following the team’s failure to win a tournament to date on the 2022-23 HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series.
“Sa dodonu saraga me kerea nona vakacegu. Na kena i rairai qo ni na sega ni na rawa ni vakarautaka e dua na timi vinaka ena Paris Olympic me taqomaka na gold medal. (He should resign. Just by looking at the team’s performance, I don’t think we will defend our gold medal at the Paris Olympics),” Naiteqe said.
“He keeps changing his players in every tournament – same mistakes in every game, poor defence, too much individual play. Their weakness is in counterattack, the kick offs, and other simple mistakes which the coach should teach them how to counter.
“We must do something now before it gets any worse.”
Naiteqe said the Fiji Rugby Union must also look at the performance of the team’s strength and conditioning coach after the players looked fatigue.
“We didn’t perform to the level where Fiji is known,” he said. “There were a lot of missed tackles, unnecessary shouting and they didn’t have the flair of playing.”
The team will return to the country this week and prepare for the Hong Kong 7s which is from March 31 to April 2.
