Fiji determined to turn around poor record at Sydney Sevens
A “ruthless” Fiji side wants to eradicate their Sydney hoodoo and make their first final here following back-to-back tournament wins in the World Sevens Series.
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A “ruthless” Fiji side wants to eradicate their Sydney hoodoo and make their first final here following back-to-back tournament wins in the World Sevens Series.
A dominant Fijian side has won the Cape Town and Hamilton legs to go equal top of the World Series standings alongside USA, who they thumped 38-0 in last weekend’s final in New Zealand.
But Sydney has been an unhappy hunting ground for the Olympic gold medallists.
After finishing third in 2016, fifth in 2017 and sixth last year, the Fijians want to “put to bed” their poor results in the Harbour City.
Hundreds of extra tickets for Sydney were purchased within an hour of Fiji winning the Hamilton tournament last Sunday, suggesting there will yet again be a massive contingent of their fans at Spotless Stadium this weekend.
“We haven’t performed here over the past couple of seasons, we’ve known that,” Fiji’s coach Gareth Baber said. “We know there will be a Fijian crowd again here for us, which is superb.
“It’s one that we want to put to bed, in terms of the last couple of years, and make sure we do carry on with the quality that we did show in Hamilton.
“We’re getting some key aspects of our game right. We’re getting more difficult to score against which is great.
“We didn’t have it all our own way [last] weekend, but we certainly learned from it, and when we got to the semi-final, final, we got ourselves into a position to pressurise the opposition when we didn’t have the ball.
“And then we were particularly ruthless when we did have it. It’s probably as accurate as I have seen us. That comes from a lot of hard work over the years we’ve been together, and probably quality leadership.”
Baber said the infamous Sigatoka sand dunes his team runs up and down as part of their training had now become like a religious experience for the players.
“I know in Fiji there is a whole mythology around the sand dunes, and it is, it’s right,” Baber said. “I’ve been up there, we got up there quite regularly, and the way the boys train, it is pretty special when you’re up there, and there is a religious quality to it in how we feel about each other when we’re there and particularly how close the players are to God at that stage.”
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