Naitasiri hones up game basics and player development in 2022 campaign

The Naitasiri rugby team redressed its playbook coming into the 2022 Skipper Cup campaign and it has impacted their games throughout the five rounds of competition.

Naitasiri is leading the 2022 Skipper Cup points table after an unbeaten five rounds run with 23 points, and defending the Farebrother Sullivan Trophy four times in a row at Naluwai ground.

After the Highlanders clinched the Farebrother Trophy in the early rounds last year from Nadi, they knew that the prestigious trophy needed to remain in the Highlands, and for this to be possible the coaching staff had to work on precisions of the basics of their game and the honing up of their young talented prospects coming in their pathway system.

The Naitasiri coaching staff understood the assignment at hand whereas they jotted together a plan to lift the team’s performance this year.

Naitasiri headcoach Dr. Ilaitia Tuisese explained that the fundamental of their structure play and enhancing their pathway was the core focus coming into the 2022 campaign.

Tuisese added that going back to the basics of their gameplay and focusing on the players in their pathway programme has amp up the overall performance so far.

“It’s just coming back to the basics of our game, once you get the basics right then we see how we want to play and how we will execute on our play, then we started to do things we couldn’t do in the past,” said Tuisese.

Tuisese added that they’ve got about 5 players transitioning well from their pathway system to joining the senior team, “we’ve got our system in place in getting these players prepared through the pathway.”

Coach Tuisese emphasised on the importants of focusing on honing up their player pathway system saying how it’ll help improve the team’s performance in the long run.

“We’ll just have to keep building on what we’ve got, these young players will come on to represent Naitasiri in the future and hopefully secure a spot for the Drua or overseas contract.

Dr Tuisese added that in order for the team to continue their winning spree they’ll have to improve on all aspect of their game.

“work harder, theres a lot of work to do, we need to improve on discipline, we lack a bit of cohesion in this Farebrother challenge so we need to work on all these, we need to work on the the basics, getting the basics right, and we need to continue developing our players,” added Tuisese.

Naitasiri will now defend the Farebrother Trophy on the seventh round of Skipper Cup competition against Northland which is on the 21st of May, 2022 at Naluwai ground.