FORMER national 7s team captain and coach Waisale Serevi wants to draw a full circle to his rugby career by signing off as a coach with his native Fiji.
Serevi told the Gulf News he had done a lot for Fiji in 7s and was ready to end his career with the Fiji team.
“I have always done everything for rugby in Fiji through a 21-year career. I’ve played in the sevens Rugby World Cup and won two as a captain for Fiji
“It will be a great story to end up in Fiji coaching Fiji one of these years,” Serevi told Gulf News.
Serevi’s plans has been fully supported by one of the top local 7s coach Sailosi Naiteqe.
Naiteqe who has coached his Waimanu team to many tournament victories said he supported Serevi if he wants to coach the Fiji team. “I am 100 per cent in support of him (Serevi coming back to coach the Fiji teamm,” he said.
Serevi said the moment he was focused on Russia sevens.
“If the opportunity is there then who knows? It all started in Fiji and it could end in Fiji,” he smiled.
Serevi has already seen through nearly one year of his contract with the Rugby Union of Russia (RUR).
However, possibly with a sense of disillusionment at not finding the right results, the 51-year-old stepped down as head coach and offered his services only as a consultant to the development of sevens in Russia.
“We will speak about the contract once we return to Russia,” he said. Nicknamed as ‘The Wizard’ by commentators, Serevi is widely recognised as the greatest sevens player in the history of the game in his biography by Nick Darvenzi titled ‘Waisale Serevi: King of Sevens’ hit the stands last year.
In the 15s, he played for Fiji 39 times between 1989 and 2003 that also included three Rugby World Cups (1991, 1999 and 2003).
His Sevens career took off in 1989 when he played for Fiji at the Hong Kong 7s.
He also went on to play in the 1993, 1997, 2001 and 2005 Rugby World Cup Sevens — winning the title in 1997 and 2005. After his World Cup triumph in 2005, Serevi was appointed player-coach of the Fiji 7s national team where he did remarkably well leading his side to a triumph at the 2005-’06 World Sevens Series — the first time the series was won by a team other than New Zealand. “Fiji is always up there in sevens rugby.
We are the Olympic champions (in Rio 2016) and I don’t see any reason why Fiji won’t be able to defend the gold medal in Tokyo,” he related.
“I know there are a lot of teams who are also building up towards 2020 Tokyo but Fiji have done a lot of hard work in the past few weeks and that will show sooner or later.
“I think we have a good chance of defending our title in Japan.
“We have the right players, and maybe with one or two players from abroad we can shore up the team.
“There is still time as the Olympics is quite a few months away,” he added.
