NADROGA rugby has continued to blossom in the local rugby fraternity with its players also doing well internationally because of the way they have groomed from grassroots level.
That is the thought of former Flying Fijian Koli Sewabu.
Shared on the Fiji Rugby coaches forum on social media, Sewabu said he wanted to share his “experience at ground level, two weeks ago” when he was with the Naitasiri rugby team for the HFC Bank Farebrother Sullivan trophy challenge.
His views were that players lacked basic skill level of catch and pass.
“Quite poor for one of the top provincial teams in the country. I shared my feedback with one of the trainers —— mentioned it will be a 4/10 in comparison with my club team here in NZ,” Sewabu stated.
He highlighted that there was also a lack of awareness from players in the defence alignment and organisation in the common ruck defence area.
“And this leads to lack of clarity in team defence. Players can tackle but can’t defend.”
He said the mentality of coaches at club level hasn’t seem to change for years now as information he gathered seem to point at a direction of the waiting game whereby clubs wait for the parent body and those from Rugby House seem to also be waiting for clubs to request assistance.
“Add to this, there are only a few development officers to cater for the 80,000 plus registered players. There’s lack of technical/tactical awareness of the game, especially the tackle area/ground ball, and game planning/profiling and there were only three club games before Skipper Cup starts.”
He said what he wanted to see was to have a dedicated development officer in each union who should work with the club coaches.
“A number of ex-players are already doing this ((Seremaia) Bai, Ro Dovi (Alivereti), Norman (Ligairi and (Epeli) Ruivadra) and the fruits of their work I witnessed during the finals of the secondary schools girls 7s playoffs as a curtain-raiser to the Deans final.
“A new revamped development system is needed, with a lot of patience as it may take years before fruition! But do it now —— the same problem I encountered as a player for Naitasiri back in 2002, I still see happening during my two weeks in 2016 —— that’s 14 years.”
“With all due respect I mentioned this to a few of the officials I spent some time together prior to heading back to NZ.”
Sewabu said Naitasiri could match Nadroga in mind and spirit, but not with the current skill level.
“If these are some of the issues I encountered with one of the top four provincial teams in Fiji- imagine the rest underneath.”
