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Ex-Fiji 7s coach poses 15s question in wake of Dubai Sevens blowout
By Chris Jones
Former Fiji 7s coach Peni Veidreyaki has questioned the wisdom of letting so many of the country’s gold winning squad transfer into the 15s game with the Commonwealth Games and Rugby World Cup Sevens on the horizon.
His comments came after the Fiji Airways Fijian 7s exit from the second HSBC Wordld Sevens Series event in Dubai with losses to France 17-22 and Spain 14-33.The side finished off their pool campaign with a 40-7 victory against Argentina but this was not enough to ensure the side qualified for the cup quarter-finals.
Veidreyaki said it took former Fiji 7s coach Gareth Baber nearly three years to build a winning combination to win the 2018-2019 series after his appointment in 2016. Baber was offered the chance to continue in the role after winning Olympic gold in Tokyo but opted to take up a coaching post with Edinburgh which he has just started after temporarily coaching the Flying Fijian squad in their Autumn series matches.
Veidreyaki told the Fiji Times: “Why take 11 new players when members of the Tokyo gold medal winning team could have been retained for the two major events next year? It takes time to groom players for an international environment especially when you have seven players in the squad who haven’t even gone abroad. Only a few players from the winning squad in Tokyo got overseas contracts while others have been contracted by the Fijian Drua.
“A winning combination cannot be built overnight and in rugby, the 7s game and 15s game are separate codes which require special coaching techniques especially at the highest level. The Commonwealth Games will be held in Birmingham, England from July 28 to August 8 while the RWC 7s will be held in September 9-11 in South Africa.”
Meanwhile, Fiji’s double gold medal winning Olympian Seremaia Tuwai has married his long time partner and mother to his children, Mereani Folau, at the FMF Gymnasium in Suva.
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Stephen Larkham, Mick Byrne, Scott Wisental, Ben Mowen, Les Kiss, Jim McKay, Rod Kafer.
There are plenty of great Australian coaches who could do a better job than Schmidt.
Go to commentsThis piece is nothing more than the result of revisionist fancy of Northern Hemisphere rugby fans. Seeing what they want to see, helped but some surprisingly good results and a desire to get excited about doing something well.
I went back through the 6N highlights and sure enough in every English win I remembered seeing these exact holes on the inside, that are supposedly the fallout out of a Felix Jones system breaking down in the hands of some replacement. Every time the commentators mentioned England being targeted up the seam/around the ruck or whatever. Each game had a try scored on the inside of the blitz, no doubt it was a theme throughout all of their games. Will Jordan specifically says that Holland had design that move to target space he saw during their home series win.
Well I'm here to tell you they were the same holes in a Felix Jones system being built as well. This woe is now sentiment has got to stop. The game is on a high, these games have been fantastic! It is Englands attack that has seen their stocks increase this year, and no doubt that is what SB told him was the teams priority. Or it's simply science, with Englands elite players having worked towards a new player welfare and management system, as part of new partnership with the ERU, that's dictating what the players can and can't put their bodies through.
The only bit of truth in this article is that Felix is not there to work on fixing his defence. England threw away another good chance of winning in the weekend when they froze all enterprise under pressure when no longer playing attacking footy for the second half. That mindset helped (or not helped if you like) of course by all this knee jerk, red brained criticism.
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