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The Fiji reaction to losing assistant Jason Ryan to the All Blacks

(Photo by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)

Fiji boss Vern Cotter has finally shared his thoughts on the sudden loss of forwards coach Jason Ryan to the All Blacks. The assistant has been working with the Pacific Islanders since 2020 and had been signed until the 2023 Rugby World Cup finals in France. 

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However, he will now be at that tournament as an All Blacks assistant after he was recruited last weekend by New Zealand Rugby when they opted to bring in Ryan to assist Ian Foster and jettison John Plumtree and Brad Mooar. 

Ryan, who had combined his Fiji role with assisting the Super Rugby champion Crusaders, was part of the management that recently oversaw the latest Pacific Nations Cup campaign, a July schedule where an opening round win over Tonga was followed by losses to Australia A and Samoa.

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The departure of Ryan came 14 months before a World Cup featuring pool matches versus Wales, Australia, Georgia and a still-to-be-confirmed qualifier and Fiji boss Cotter said the chance to coach the All Blacks was an opportunity his forwards coach couldn’t refuse.

“This gives us a few options moving forward,” said Cotter to the Fiji Sun. “It should not disrupt too much as I’m not too far away from the forwards and what they have been doing with Jason. This [the set-piece] is where we can control games better. There will be a coach but the players are part of this theme moving forward.”

Cotter gave no indication as to who he might recruit following the departure of Ryan from the Fiji ticket but ex-international Sireli Bobo reckoned a local coach must be added to management in order to better motivate the players who threw away a 17-3 half-time lead against Samoa to lose by three points. 

“Many fans blamed the coach and his coaching staff but they had done their job,” said Bobo. “It’s the players’ attitude and how they prepare them­selves mentally to get into a crunch match. The fact is, that we lost right here at home, right in our backyard, to a team that hardly beat us both home and away. It’s just unacceptable given the calibre of players and the records we have.

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These players should learn to have pride in the white jersey because they are not playing for themselves: they are playing for the peo­ple of Fiji. They have a huge responsibil­ity when they put on that jersey. They are taking things lightly. 

“I don’t know if they know the culture, history and significance of the Flying Fijians jersey and how important it is to represent their country. These players should know and understand their pur­pose – why they want to represent Fiji and who they are playing for.

“It seems they don’t have passion for their country and even pride for the jer­sey. The players should take a really good look at themselves.

“They [Fiji’s overseas coaches] don’t know how to switch our players on. It takes one Fijian to know the other. Our players respond to the tough words used on them to psyche them up. Our players need to be told things straight on their faces.

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“It is things like their haircuts and atti­tude that they should work on. How they present themselves to the public is very important. This is the Flying Fiji­ans team, not a club team. Talent can take you anywhere, but your attitude carries you.”

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Flankly 56 minutes 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
N
Nickers 1 hour ago
Scott Robertson responds to criticism over All Blacks' handling errors

I thought we made a lot of progress against that type of defence by the WC last year. Lots of direct running and punching holes rather than using width. Against that type of defence I think you have to be looking to kick on first phase when you have front foot ball which we did relatively successfully. We are playing a lot of rugby behind the gain line at the moment. They are looking for those little interchanges for soft shoulders and fast ball or off loads but it regularly turns into them battering away with slow ball and going backwards, then putting in a very rushed kick under huge pressure.


JB brought that dimension when he first moved into 12 a couple of years ago but he's definitely not been at his best this year. I don't know if it is because he is being asked to play a narrow role, or carrying a niggle or two, but he does not look confident to me. He had that clean break on the weekend and stood there like he was a prop who found himself in open space and didn't know what to do with the ball. He is still a good first phase ball carrier though, they use him a lot off the line out to set up fast clean ball, but I don't think anyone is particularly clear on what they are supposed to do at that point. He was used really successfully as a second playmaker last year but I don't think he's been at that role once this year. He is a triple threat player but playing a very 1 dimensional role at the moment. He and Reiko have been absolutely rock solid on defence which is why I don't think there will be too much experimentation or changes there.

43 Go to comments
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