Baber focus on contact Area.

The Fiji Airways Fiji 7s team have been working hard on their defence strategy throughout the week in preparation for the upcoming Hamilton 7s which is set to kick off from 26-27 of this month.

Head Coach Gareth Baber believes that maintaining the central key components of defence with the boys creates lots of opportunity for them to score points.

Baber emphasized that the boys should understand the individual tackle technique to be able to make a good one on one tackle which creates the opportunity for them to win back the ball in the process, and in order to execute this technique “we’re working on organising players in the right position on the field which will give them the advantage to make good one on one tackles” he said.

“Understanding how you organize yourself in different situations gives the advantage to the players to win the contact area they’re involved in and its quite a simple process which requires the players to work at the same level every time.”

Baber explained that the boys generally knows this strategy but the most important thing is to keep on working it out with them until its habitual where they consistently produce quality play.

“when the players do this its creates trust within the team and defence is all about trusting each other.”

Across both 7s and XVs Fiji has had a notorious reputation for ruthless defence giving away cheap yellow cards costing critical points and at times victories for the national teams, however Baber has been encouraged to see a diminished number of yellow cards in the contact area in the past tournaments, “I can’t remember us receiving a yellow card in the contact area for the last few tournaments, there were yellow cards given but not in the contact area and I wanna keep to that.”

“whats happening is we’re creating pressure in that area which is preventing the opposition from getting into their rhythm of their game which creates the ultimate rhythm for the boys.”

He explained that the main aim is to create as many turnover as possible to give the boys the opportunity to score.
“We have to create turnover, and we’re the best in the world in scoring from turnovers.”

The Fiji Airways 7s team is currently sitting on third place with 35 point trailing behind New Zealand with 37 and USA with 38 points who appeared in two consecutives cup final in Dubai and Cape Town.

The team finished this week’s training camp with another gruelling session at the Sigatoka Sand Dunes before breaking for recovery across the week.