Defence Key for Gibbes

Defence will be among the key areas for Chris Gibbes this season as he guides the Fijian Drua’s forward pack.

The former Hurricanes assistant coach was appointed Drua’s forwards coach at last year’s Shop N Save Super Rugby Pacific.

According to the 2025 statistics, the Drua had the weakest defence.

“I think if we look at the main roles that our forwards are going to do, which is obviously our set-piece, some breakdown work, and obviously our defence around our set-piece side of things. We’ve got some work to do,” Gibbes said.

“I think as a group, we’d probably say that we weren’t nailing our roles consistently. That’s the biggest thing and the biggest reflection, review point, and I guess that’s formed a lot of the planning.”

He said the team will need to step back and assess themselves and identify what they’re already good at and areas that needs improvement.

“We really going back to looking at what we need to work on, but where are we going to spend our energy and our time to get the results that we need.

“I look at the set-piece, our line-out side of things, we’ve got some really good athletes, we’ve got some really good stuff going on, but we’re just not nailing it at critical times,” Gibbes said.

The Drua’s loosehead props are Flying Fijians Haereiti Hetet and Peni Ravai and Emosi Tuqiri while the the tighthead props include Mesake Doge, Samuela Tawake and Meli Tuni.

Hookers are Mesulame Dolokoto, Zuriel Togiatama and Kavaia Tagivetaua.

“The question has to be asked around how are we training, how are we understanding that stuff to get that so we can nail it in the game,” Gibbes said.

He added that the team needs to be persistent.

“One of the things that we keep coming back to is that we do the simple really well, and if we can get that and be consistent in that, we’ll get the ball that we want. That’ll get us in the game that we want to do, our big boys rolling forward, and then we can take care of things like the breakdown,” he said.

The Drua will meet the Chiefs in their pre-season match on January 30 before they take on the Skipper XV Select on February 6.

They will host Moana Pasifika at Churchill Park, Lautoka in Round 1 of the Super Rugby Pacific competition on February 14.