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Why the World's best sevens player has knife and fork written on his boots

Jerry Tuwai, the reigning World Rugby Men’s Sevens Player of the Year, has revealed why he puts the words “knife” and “fork” on every pair of rugby boots he wears .

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The Fijian sevens superstar has his eyes set on helping his country win another Olympic Games gold medal in Tokyo this year and when the tournament takes place his boots will feature those two words that are designed to remind him of the sacrifices his parents made to give him a sporting chance.

Tuwai’s father and mother scrimped and saved enough money to buy their son his first pair of rugby boots. As she handed them over Tuwai’s mother told him “ this is your knife and fork .”

Tuwai’s rugby story has been showcased in a special video produced for Mizuno and has been released at a difficult time for everyone who is playing on the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Circuit with the Hong Kong and Singapore tournaments postponed until October due to the coronavirus which may also make it difficult for Fiji to arrange practise matches with Australia and Samoa. With the Olympics sevens still scheduled to take place at the end of July, all the major nations are trying to find a way of maintaining match fitness until the next two rounds of the Sevens, due to take place in London (May 23-24) and Paris (May 30-31).

Tuwai is back in Fiji training and admits this was a part of his chosen sport he did not enjoy but success on the world stage has helped turn him into a model professional sevens star who has never forgotten the sacrifices his parents made.

In the film Tuwai says: “I did not know my Mum was saving some money for my rugby boots. I couldn’t believe it because I knew they weren’t earning big money. They bought me these boots and my mum told me “this is your life – this is your knife and your fork”. It really touched me and from that time until now I always write on my boots when I am about to play – knife and fork.

“When I get tired and want to give up I just picture our house and my parents and I am working for them. I just picture my Mum working and my Dad working hard on the farm.

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“And I always pray “ God give me the strength – I can’t give up now” when my Mum and Dad never gave up on me. I never sacrificed a lot it- is because of the sacrifices of my Dad and my Mum and my family. Because of their sacrifice I am where I am today.”

Tuwai wants to help Fijian youngsters achieve even more than he has managed on the world stage and added: “Rugby can change anyone and I know that because I came through that life. One thing I regret in my life is dropping out of school but I am grateful that God has been good to me and provided me with another thing I can work on that’s my rugby.”

WATCH: Israel Dagg, Ali Williams, Mils Muliaina and Angus Ta’avao join Kirstie Stanway on the couch for another entertaining episode of the Kick Off.

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AllyOz 16 hours ago
Does the next Wallabies coach have to be an Australian?

I will preface this comment by saying that I hope Joe Schmidt continues for as long as he can as I think he has done a tremendous job to date. He has, in some ways, made the job a little harder for himself by initially relying on domestic based players and never really going over the top with OS based players even when he relaxed his policy a little more. I really enjoy how the team are playing at the moment.


I think Les Kiss, because (1) he has a bit more international experience, (2) has previously coached with Schmidt and in the same setup as Schmidt, might provide the smoothest transition, though I am not sure that this necessarily needs to be the case.


I would say one thing though about OS versus local coaches. I have a preference for local coaches but not for the reason that people might suppose (certainly not for the reason OJohn will have opined - I haven't read all the way down but I think I can guess it).


Australia has produced coaches of international standing who have won World Cups and major trophies. Bob Dwyer, Rod Macqueen, Alan Jones, Michael Cheika and Eddie Jones. I would add John Connolly - though he never got the international success he was highly successful with Queensland against quality NZ opposition and I think you could argue, never really got the run at international level that others did (OJohn might agree with that bit). Some of those are controversial but they all achieved high level results. You can add to that a number of assistants who worked OS at a high level.


But what the lack of a clear Australian coach suggests to me is that we are no longer producing coaches of international quality through our systems. We have had some overseas based coaches in our system like Thorn and Wessels and Cron (though I would suggest Thorn was a unique case who played for Australia in one code and NZ in the other and saw himself as a both a NZer and a Queenslander having arrived here at around age 12). Cron was developed in the Australian system anyway, so I don't have a problem with where he was born.


But my point is that we used to have systems in Australia that produced world class coaches. The systems developed by Dick Marks, which adopted and adapted some of the best coaching training approaches at the time from around the world (Wales particularly) but focussed on training Australian coaches with the best available methods, in my mind (as someone who grew up and began coaching late in that era) was a key part of what produced the highly skilled players that we produced at the time and also that produced those world class coaches. I think it was slipping already by the time I did my Level II certificate in 2002 and I think Eddie Jones influence and the priorities of the executive, particularly John O'Neill, might have been the beginning of the end. But if we have good coaching development programmes at school and junior level that will feed through to representative level then we will have


I think this is the missing ingredient that both ourselves and, ironically, Wales (who gave us the bones of our coaching system that became world leading), is a poor coaching development system. Fix that and you start getting players developing basic skills better and earlier in their careers and this feeds through all the way through the system and it also means that, when coaching positions at all levels come up, there are people of quality to fill them, who feed through the system all the way to the top. We could be exporting more coaches to Japan and England and France and the UK and the USA, as we have done a bit in the past.


A lack of a third tier between SR and Club rugby might block this a little - but I am not sure that this alone is the reason - it does give people some opportunity though to be noticed and play a key role in developing that next generation of players coming through. And we have never been able to make the cost sustainable.


I don't think it matters that we have an OS coach as our head coach at the moment but I think it does tell us something about overall rugby ecosystem that, when a coaching appointment comes up, we don't have 3 or 4 high quality options ready to take over. The failure of our coaching development pathway is a key missing ingredient for me and one of the reasons our systems are failing.

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