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Fiji 7s may lose speedster as team hit by more problems

Alasio Naduva (Photo by Mark Kolbe/Getty Images)

The troubled Fiji Sevens squad have hit another problem as they prepare for the Las Vegas and Vancouver legs of the HSBC World Sevens Series with wing Alasio Naduva waiting to discover if he has the correct visa status to depart with the rest of the squad.

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Naduva’s position is unclear despite previously being approved to travel for the Rugby 7s World Cup in San Francisco leaving head coach Gareth Baber with another headache in what has been a demanding two weeks.

Baber has included captain Kalione Nasoko for the two legs, starting in Las Vegas next week, despite the player pleading guilty to drink driving. He will find out his fate when returning to court at the end of March.

“We had applied early for the player’s visa well prior to the Hamilton 7s and despite Naduva being allowed to travel last year to Las Vegas and San Francisco, there has still been no outcome to his visa application” explained John O’Connor, the Fiji Rugby Union chief executive. “We are still very hopeful that we will receive feedback to his visa application at the earliest to allow him to join the team as we are required by World Rugby and USA Rugby to field our strongest possible team.”

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With a doubt over Naduva’s visa application, Ulaiyata Batisavu is on standby to travel with the squad to North America where they are hoping to replicate their back to back wins in Cape Town and Hamilton earlier in the campaign.

Baber has brought in Isoa Tabu (Yamacia) and Asaeli Tuivoka (Wardens) as changes to the squad that took part in the Hamilton and Sydney series legs and the head coach could be able to consider Alipate Ratini for the series after the player returned to Fiji following time in France playing for clubs including Grenoble and La Rochelle. Ratini, who played for the Fiji Sevens team at the 2013 Rugby World Cup Sevens, joined rugby league side Cronulla Sharks before returning to union and heading to France. He said: “I want to be part of the Fiji Sevens team in the future.”.

For now, Baber has to concentrate on those players who are both fit and have satisfied the visa requirements and he said: “Isoa and Asa have worked hard to earn their inclusion in this squad in a very competitive training environment and I am comfortable that they will be able to do the job required of them for the team.”

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Fiji are in the same pool in Las Vegas as Scotland, Australia and Wales.

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J
JW 4 hours ago
'Let's not sugarcoat it': Former All Black's urgent call to protect eligibility rules

Yep, no one knows what will happen. Thing is I think (this is me arguing a point here not a random debate with this one) they're better off trialing it now in a controlled environment than waiting to open it up in a knee jerk style reaction to a crumbling organtization and team. They can always stop it again.


The principle idea is that why would players leave just because the door is ajar?


BBBR decides to go but is not good enough to retain the jersey after doing it. NZ no longer need to do what I suggest by paying him to get back upto speed. That is solely a concept of a body that needs to do what I call pick and stick wth players. NZR can't hold onto everyone so they have to choose their BBBRs and if that player comes back from a sabbatical under par it's a priority to get him upto speed as fast as possible because half of his competition has been let go overseas because they can't hold onto them all. Changing eligibility removes that dilemma, if a BBBR isn't playing well you can be assured that someone else is (well the idea is that you can be more assured than if you only selected from domestic players).


So if someone decides they want to go overseas, they better do it with an org than is going to help improve them, otherwise theyre still basically as ineligible as if they would have been scorning a NZ Super side that would have given them the best chance to be an All Black.

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