Put on the right mindset, players told

The Fiji women’s sevens head coach has highlighted the need for players to get their mindset right and put on an improved performance if they are to qualify for next season’s HSBC Women’s World Sevens Series.

This was the gist of Richard Walker’s interview with SUNsports yesterday morning.

“The key message has been around obviously, consistency, and they understand that,” he said.

“We talk about it but it is about getting our mindset in the right place and for us to help each other on the field.

“As we know, when players or individuals make a mistake, they kind of beat themselves up inside.”

Walker said the mindset for other players was to remain positive towards those who make mistakes, so they could move on to the next task and if they did that, they would achieve more consistency.

“There’s still a lot of time left in the game and there’s still time to rectify something that they’ve done and so, for us, we’re just encouraging them around that so that they can continue to have a positive mindset and we can get that consistency,” Walker said.

He said they had pressured the players to improve and connect well to achieve consistency and good results.

Walker said it is important the Fijiana side finish well in this last championship tournament or they will not qualify for the next season.

“If we could not end our season with a good performance we will be relegated for the next season and I know that we can do it.

“This is because, as we know, next year is the qualifying season for the Olympics.

“If we can get some good confidence coming out of this, I think that gives us a good head start for the following season,” he said.

Fixtures

Women- Tonight: 10.04pm Fiji v Japan; Saturday: 3.51am Australia v Fiji; 11.32pm Fiji v Brazil.

Men- Saturday: 12.44am Fiji v Kenya; 6.14am Fiji v Great Britain; 9.06pm Fiji v South Africa.