Fuli maps out his strategy for Dubai 7s

The Fiji Airways Fijian 7s Head coach Saiasi Fuli has mapped out a counter attacking strategy for his players in the men’s and women’s team for the second leg of the Dubai 7s this weekend.

After the men’s fourth placed seeding and second place for women in the first leg of Dubai 7s last weekend, Fuli and his coaching staff analyzed and figured out the weaknesses and strengths of both teams.

“We did our reviews and there are a lot of learnings and work on to do and I believe our team will live up to the expectations.

“Individually the players displayed some good rugby but them they need to improve as we are set to face tougher and experience team in the pool games.” said Fuli.

Fuli has summarized the performance as highlighted the areas we need to be at our level best to counter tough teams.

“We need to be clinical and we need to stay composed throughout the two days’ tournament and also be competitive in every game and make sure we start well and finish well in every game,” he added.

“As for the Fijiana, I know it’s a very tricky format with only two pools and the pool winner goes straight into the final.

“They need to apply pressure, utilize the possession they have and convert it into points.

“You can’t be spending two or three minutes in sevens in one half defending. We need quality possessions from set pieces, restarts, scrums, quick tap and lineout and on the face play we need to utilize possession too,” Fuli said.

“The only way forward for this week is to have that right mindset of applying pressure and controlling the game and converting those opportunities into points.

The second leg of the Dubai 7s  will kick-off on Friday with Fijiana playing Ireland at 5:22pm then will play USA at 8:02pm.

On Saturday they will face Great Britain at 12:14am and France at 8:29pm.

The men’s team plays their first game on Friday against France at 5:44pm then Spain at 9:14pm before their final pool match against Argentina at 1:24am on Saturday.