FORMER Fiji 7s coach Ben Ryan once said: “Fiji’s ‘eighth man’ always making a big difference to the rugby 7s world title charge” in the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series.
He always counts the Fijian fans as the eighth man on the field.
No matter where a 7s tournament takes us, Fijian supporters can be seen in the grandstand as they travel from around the world to support our boys.
As witnessed in the past Wellington 7s, Fiji’s supporters at Westpac Stadium appeared to outnumber —and definitely out-sung —New Zealand’s in Sunday’s quarter-final and that hurt the host team, stuff.co.nz reports.
New Zealand 7s coach Scott Waldrom in the report said obviously they were out-supported by the Fijians in that one — to him it felt the Argentinian crowd was even louder than theirs.
“That’s a little bit disappointing for the boys that when they do get to play in front of a home crowd, it’s not there,” he said in the report.
“It’s been a pretty tough week. We had to deal with a lot around the old (Gordon) Tietjens controversy, the poor (crowd) numbers and the lack of support.”
