Olympic gold medal winning Fijian men’s rugby sevens head coach Ben Ryan knew that the boys were taking home gold when he saw them run onto in the final of the men’s sevens.

“In that moment when they ran out I realised why we were going to win that final, because that wasn’t seven players running out and it wasn’t the whole population behind them,” Ryan said.

“The pressure wasn’t on their shoulders; the boys were on the shoulders of every Fijian on this island.”

Ryan shared the story when asked to say a few words at the Team Fiji celebrations at Prince Charles Park in Nadi yesterday.

He recalled the moments before the final against Great Britain.

“Outside the changing room is the warm area and we had an area on the left and Great Britain had an area on the right. And Great Britain were in our area– they like to invade places, and they took our side and we did not complain.

“I watched them put out one cone, two cones, until they got to over 40 cones, they had eight coaches and managers,” he said.

Ryan said in their changing room the boys were laughing and dancing although it was the biggest game in the history of rugby sevens which would be watched by millions of people worldwide.

“We did not have any cones, we did not have any tackle shields, I did not have to blow my whistle– we did a short warm up, I could not stop them smiling.

“When I see them smiling and I see them relaxed, I know they will be relaxed and they’ll be ruthless,” he said.

“I watched our boys run out– they were skipping and jumping, shouting Toso Viti Toso.”

Team GB however were tense and he observed that their shoulders and jaws were tense.

Ryan also revealed that he received a text from Buzz Aldrin, who was the second person to land on the moon, saying how great the Fijian men’s sevens played.

Ryan received a massive response from the crowd when he was called up. The team are hosted to another celebration at the ANZ Stadium in Suva today.

Edited by Leone Cabenatabua

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