Surrey Stars players raise aloft the Jayden Memorial Cup, the team beat Rewa 3-0 in the final at the Bear Creek Park in Surrey

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Heads must roll

Opinions / Analysis

WE had the dream team, well that's what we were made to believe.


So, what went terribly wrong at the Rugby World Cup Sevens in San Francisco, USA.

A bad team performance?

That, and the fact the Fiji Airways 7s team was anything but a dream team.

The team with some big-name players simply failed to live up to the billing at the biggest stage, and coach Gareth Baber should own up the failure.

And with the admission that the inclusion of the France based players who struggled to keep their form when fatigue crept in only makes him look bad in the public eye.

Baber is a professional, he should've know better from the very get go that these players were of a huge pack and needed time to assimilate, yet he decided to follow his heart to include them.

A week last Sunday, Baber had high praise for Josua Tuisova, Leone Nakarawa, Semi Kunatani and Semi Radradra.

He even said the four were the game's best and they would bring physical strength, power and adapt to sevens game in a heartbeat.

What he failed to recognize was that without fitness, even the game's best would struggle to keep up with the game as sevens is a high endurance sport.

Baber shot his foot when he dropped some of the high energy churning players like, Eroni Sau, Josua Vakarunabuli, Waisea Nacuqu and Apenisa Cakabalavu, the very season campaigners helped the team win a record four consecutive HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series tournament.

He should've retained the core, perfected the combination for the greater good of the jell and win the world cup, instead he did quite the opposite.

Worse off, after the New Zealand loss he took a swipe on the whole fitness and conditioning of the very players he rated highly.

Since his admission, the most asked question is, if the four players were not fit for the RWC7s, why did he take them in the first place.

And why didn't he stuck with players that had performed well in the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series.

By gauging the performance of some of the big named players during the World Cup hiatus, numbers are what they made on the team than anything else.

Baber erroneously failed and despite some serious high-altitude training in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, Fiji was outwitted and outplayed by both New Zealand and South Africa.

Its their strategy that beat Fiji fairly and squarely, no argument there.

The New Zealand beat is what thwarted the country a medal at the Rugby World Cup Sevens, the team also squandered the 2017-2018 HSBC World Rugby Sevens championship to Bltzboks and the Commonwealth Games loss all in the same year.

The head honchos at the rugby house need to reevaluate their position on the coaching aspect of the game or face similar humiliation in the future.

The anemic run only starves its loyal fans championship, patience though, is obviously running thin for the thousands.

Let's be mindful of the fact that failure is nothing but education, nothing but the first step to something better.

Heads must roll now for future good of the sport.

It is said a team is as good as the coach and here the tilt of it looks bleak.

 

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