Vickerman: Local coach for Fiji 7s team

RENOWNED HSBC World Rugby Sevens commentator, Rob Vick­er­man, be­lieves the Fi­jian men’s 7s team is ready for a lo­cal coach.

Speak­ing to SUNs­ports dur­ing the first day of the Van­cou­ver Sev­ens, Vick­er­man said with the amount of tal­ent in the coun­try, a lo­cal coach could do the job pro­vided he is dis­ci­plinar­ian.

“Local coaches have learnt from Ben Ryan and Gareth Baber the tech­ni­cal and tac­ti­cal of the sev­ens game,” said Vick­er­man.

“Fiji has an abun­dance of tal­ent; any lo­cal coach will do the job.

“But it comes down to dis­ci­pline, both Ryan and Baber have set a stan­dard that needs to be main­tained.”

Vick­er­man was im­pressed with the level of dis­ci­pline in the Fi­jian team ahead of the Tokyo Olympics.

He said the Olympic gold win is on the back of sac­ri­fices made by the play­ers and of­fi­cials dur­ing the five months of camp.

“They (Fiji) de­serve the Olympic gold medal win,” he added.

Any­time for Fiji: Serevi

Mean­while, rugby sev­ens mae­stro Waisale Serevi says, he is al­ways ready to coach Fiji in the fu­ture.

Serevi who is coach­ing Ja­maica in the Van­cou­ver 7s said when the op­por­tu­nity arises to coach Fiji, he will take it with open arms.

Serevi cap­tained the Fi­jian 7s team to the Sev­ens Rugby World Cup wins in 1997 and 2005. He also coached the Fijians to win their first World Sev­ens Se­ries ti­tle in the 2005/06 sea­son.

“For now, I thank the Ja­maica Rugby Union for be­liev­ing in me to coach the team for the Van­cou­ver Sev­ens but when there’s ever an op­por­tu­nity to coach Fiji, I’m al­ways avail­able”, he said.

“I con­grat­u­late Gareth Baber for do­ing an amaz­ing job of coach­ing the team to vic­tory, the Olympic Games gold proves the coach he is.

“I’m su­per proud of Baber, Jerry Tuwai and the team for win­ning the back-to-back Olympic gold.”

Serevi said should the Ja­maica Rugby Union need his help in the fu­ture, he would con­sider giv­ing it a go.

“I don’t know what the fu­ture holds, I was ap­proached by a friend to coach Ja­maica for the week­end and I ac­cepted the re­quest with honour.

“I just joined the team on Mon­day, there’s a huge po­ten­tial in the team. They need good coach­ing and men­tor­ing.

“I’m all about spread­ing the gospel of the sport.”

The Ja­maicans suf­fered heavy losses on the first day go­ing down 24-5 to Great Bri­tain, 50-0 to Ire­land and 62-0 to Hong Kong.

Serevi said as a sev­ens player and coach he wants to help the Tier 2 na­tions to com­pete against the best teams in the world.”