Flying Fijian World Cup campaign begins with reg 9 camp.

Fiji Airways Flying Fijians Head coach John McKee will begin his 2019 World cup campaign lead-in from March when he will travel to France for a 3 days camp with the overseas based Flying Fijians.

McKee explained that the camp is to assemble the almost 30 European based players in Toulouse from the 4-6 of March, as a screening camp to look at the players physically and also medically to pick up any injuries they might have and to reconnect with the Fijian programme.

McKee has been pleased with the volume and quality of game time his squad have been producing during the European competitions.

Particularly pleasing has been the form from the likes of Viliame Mata, Peceli Yato, Goneva and Nakarawa.
Whilst the big stars have been having plenty of impact during their seasons, there is still a number of players who McKee will use the camp as an opportunity to provide supplementary focus areas to work on before they combine for the PNC campaigns later in the year.

The regulation 9 camp is also an opportunity for the Head Coach to reiterate his management team’s expecations around training, nutrition and professional standards for this important World Cup year, as well as reviewing the November tours.

With such a small window of preparation time before the major tournament in September, maintaining, gathering and building upon the 2018 momentum is critical to the Fijian Head Coach and squad.

As is usual practise for the Head Coach, he will visit the numerous clubs in France to continue building relationships with his talents home bases, discussing his key plans with the coaches and management, watch rugby games and to keep track on some of the other Fijian talent available.

“We see some other players who been on our radar playing well for their respective clubs if you visit them you have a really good first hand assessment of those players,” said McKee.

McKee is not only focusing on top players but he’ll also be looking into other players to make sure he has the best possible representation come July and then September.

“We don’t only look at the top players, we are starting to look at some groups which are outside the camp. We envisage there will be a couple of guys joining the camp outside the November group. There were some who were injured when the November selections were made with the likes of Levani Botia who’s back on the field.”

“Seta Tuivucu who got injured playing against Scotland hasn’t played since, but is now back at full training and he’ll be in camp with us and hopefully he gets a little bit of game time towards the end of their season.”

Also part of his World Cup campaign is to attend the World Rugby Pacific Challenge which kicks off in March to keep an eye on the local talent who are all still in the mix of selection for the World Cup squad.

“We have many good local players including a couple of young local Flying Fijians who are on the radar, they are involved in an intensive training program here and we are watching them closely.”

He pointed out the quality young players that have came out of the under 20 program and is encouraged to see that group in action at the PRC where they will get to test themselves in a professional and higher standard of international competition.

McKee will also travel to Japan in late March to finalize the team base and camps, inspecting the facilities closely and to make sure that all the logistics are ironed out at each venue, what the training facilities are, accommodations, rooming arrangements and other arrangements for when the World Cup assault takes place.