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Olympic gold medallist slams current Fiji 7s side

Fiji players reacts after Australia won the men's HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series 2023 semi-final match between Argentina and Ireland at the Cape Town stadium in Cape Town on December 10, 2023. (Photo by Rodger Bosch / AFP) (Photo by RODGER BOSCH/AFP via Getty Images)

Former Fiji 7s star Vatemo Ravouvou has claimed the current squad competing in the men’s HSBC SVNS Series are undermining their cause because individuals want “to be the star” instead of working for the team.

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The Fiji 7s 2016 Olympic gold medallist in Rio made his comments following the opening legs of the HSBC SVNS Series in Dubai and Cape Town. Fiji finished third in Cape Town but this has not stopped critics focussing on the team and the record of Ben Gollings, the head coach. However, Ravouvou told the Fiji Times that coaching was not the problem and called on the players to work together rather than look for personal glory.

He said: “All the teams are beating Fiji now and there is no combination in the team, especially from the forwards and backline. They have to be aggressive. All I can see from the Dubai 7s and even in the Cape Town 7s, is that there is too much individual play and everyone wants to be the star.

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“We need good line breakers and the support arrives too late. This was the second tournament and the boys have to look back on what all went wrong. They have to give their best shot and not only play for themselves but for their families and their country. The coaching is good but the boys have to perform.”

Fiji arrived at Cape Town having finished fourth in Dubai 7s, losing the bronze medal playoff match 12-17 against New Zealand. They collected the bronze medal in Cape Town beating Ireland 14-7.

However, Fiji had struggled to beat France in a golden point sudden death in the cup quarters, even though the French were reduced to five men with two yellow cards. Fiji eventually lost 7-24 in the Cape Town semi-final match against Australia. Fiji currently stand in third place in the men’s table, eight points behind leaders Argentina with the next tournament being staged in Perth on 26-28 January.

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Flankly 1 hour ago
'Absolute madness': Clive Woodward rips into Borthwick in wake of NZ loss

Borthwick is supposed to be the archetypical conservative coach, the guy that might not deliver a sparkling, high-risk attacking style, but whose teams execute the basics flawlessly. And that's OK, because it can be really hard to beat teams that are rock solid and consistent in the rugby equivalent of "blocking and tackling".


But this is why the performance against NZ is hard to defend. You can forgive a conservative, back-to-basics team for failing to score tons of tries, because teams like that make up for it with reliability in the simple things. They can defend well, apply territorial pressure, win the set piece battles, and take their scoring chances with metronomic goal kicking, maul tries and pick-and-go goal line attacks.


The reason why the English rugby administrators should be on high alert is not that the English team looked unable to score tries, but that they were repeatedly unable to close out a game by executing basic, coachable skills. Regardless of how they got to the point of being in control of their destiny, they did get to that point. All that was needed was to be world class at things that require more training than talent. But that training was apparently missing, and the finger has to point at the coach.


Borthwick has been in the job for nearly two years, a period that includes two 6N programs and an RWC campaign. So where are the solid foundations that he has been building?

4 Go to comments
N
Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

Very poor understanding of what's going on and 0 ability to read. When I say playing behind the gain line you take this to mean all off-loads and site times we are playing in front of the gain line???


Every time we play a lot of rugby behind the gain line (for clarity, meaning trying to build an attack and use width without front foot ball 5m+ behind the most recent breakdown) we go backwards and turn the ball over in some way. Every time a player is tackled behind the most recent breakdown you need more and more people to clear out because your forwards have to go back around the corner, whereas opposition players can keep moving forward. Eventually you run out of either players to clear out or players to pass to and the result in a big net loss of territory and often a turnover. You may have witnessed that 20+ times in the game against England. This is a particularly dumb idea inside your own 40m which is where, for some reason, we are most likely to employ it.


The very best ABs teams never built an identity around attacking from poor positions. The DC era team was known for being the team that kicked the most. To engineer field position and apply pressure, and create broken play to counter attack. This current team is not differentiating between when a defence has lost it's structure and there are opportunities, and when they are completely set and there is nothing on. The reason they are going for 30 minute + periods in every game without scoring a single point, even against Japan and a poor Australian team, is because they are playing most of their rugby on the back foot in the wrong half.

43 Go to comments
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