'Tackle worry'

The Fiji men’s rugby 7s team needs to work on their de-fence before playing in the next HSBC SVNS Championship tournament in Hong Kong.

The tournament will be from April 17-19.

This was highlighted to SUN-sports yesterday by head coach Osea Kolinisau.

He said their tackling errors was their downfall at the Vancouver and New York tournaments.

“The stats in Dubai and Cape Town showed our missed tackles were way up high,” Kolinisau said.

“We finished third in both tournaments, but when we came to Perth and Singapore, we won. Our missed tackles were really low on those two tournaments.

“So, when we went to the last leg in Vancouver and New York our missed tackles were high again.”

Kolinisau said they had been one of the teams to have recorded the highest in tackling errors.

He reiterated that they would need to review their performance from the past tournaments and work it out from there.

Kolinisau said it is a must for them to improve on areas they are lacking in.

“It’s something I want to get away with, especially our one-on-one de-fence and our tracking, especially in getting our processes right.

“In Vancouver, most our games the boys were over-chasing. We’re not connecting.”

Kolinisau said at times it was like they were too aggressive and they should be more controlled in their tackles, but they must make sure that it is correctly done.

“We want to rectify our tackling problem. We want hard tackles

but the important thing is to get the player down. What we want is a complete tackle,” he said.

Kolinisau said the chance of making a good hit (tackle) would come (with proper timing) and that it wasn’t on every tackle that you would want to put a big hit in.

“That is why we are missing a lot of tackles. We’re working a lot on our tracking and getting our communication right. This is because when we get that right, it’s hard to go through our defence and that’s something we’re working on, espe-cially our kick-off as well.”

Kolinisau also noted that their kick -off receives was also a key area they still need to work on.

“We made a lot of mistakes like dropped balls. Against Spain, we dropped three balls from the kick-off and Spain scored three tries in Vancouver. Against Argentina in New York, we dropped three balls from the kick-off and Argentina scored three balls,” he said.

Kolinisau said it is very important for them to win the kick-offs.

However, he also highlighted that the team is physically and mentally prepared.

“The boys know what’s at stake. Like I said, the boys have been playing well throughout the season.

“You know, playing in the championship, is a hard task for the boys especially the way we let go of the last tournament. We’ve learned a lot from that. We know the championship is here, and we know Hong Kong is important,” he said. Kolinisau said it was about preparing for the next series and the team missing the top eight would drop to seventh place, which was why a strong start in Hong Kong was important.