FIJI’s top rugby commentator Graham Eden says it would be hard to find another coach such as Ben Ryan who came to Fiji with full package in 2013 when he took over the coaching job from Alifereti Dere.
Ryan guided Fiji to its first 7s gold medal win in the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, Brazil which changed the fortune of a tiny nation of Fiji.
Fiji became the top global search trends on Google after they defeated Great Britain 23-7 in the final and it did not only take Fiji to the other countries but had other benefits in terms of the tourism boost.
After a year of triumph, Eden said, it was only Ben Ryan who understood the mechanism of 7s rugby.
“It is to reflect on the performance that we played and that is only the result of the three years of hard work for a man who was dedicated and he was able to choose players who had not only talent, but they had the right mix of personality of sporting progress and were able to play the style Ben Ryan had,” he said.
“Ben Ryan came through a very concentrated physical education course at the university in London and he knew how the body works and he knew the symptoms of trouble and he was a person who would make a very good doctor in a way in which he was able to choose his players.”
Eden has 35 years of commentating experience in 7s rugby with the first one starting in 1977.
He said Ryan understood the players well and had answers to the problems in the team.
“The win was not because he (Ryan) knew the rules or he coached, but he knew modern techniques and the extent to which the player could play and he stretched them to a limit because he knew the physiology background of the human body.
And that to my mind was the secret of his success combined with the tremendous enthusiasm, support of those he chose and the very fact, that he was a rugby player himself and knew the techniques and answers to the many problems,” he added. “It would be very hard to find another Ben Ryan who has the medical cum physiological background that could put the body with sport and sport with the body.”
