A morning training session at the old Hong Kong Stadium is the perfect way to prepare for the weekend\u2019s HSBC SVNS World Championship opener. If you are Fijian.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of the new boys, you could see it in their faces, were thinking, \u2018Oh, this is where all those guys played\u2019,\u201d Fiji head coach Osea Kolinisau said on Tuesday afternoon after revisiting the host arena of the city\u2019s iconic sevens tournament from 1982-2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe legends, the players before us that set the platform and that we grew up watching played here. Just walking in you could feel the history coming flooding back. Everyone wants to win in Hong Kong because our legends played and won here.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Those legends include Kolinisau himself. A proud former captain, he has plenty of inspirational experiences to call upon as he looks to lead his charges to a record-extending 20th tournament win for Fiji\u2019s men in the sport\u2019s spiritual home.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBest memory as a player? I think winning in 2009 after 10 years without Fiji winning in Hong Kong,\u201d Kolinisau said. \u201cAnd scoring three tries in the final in 2013. We were playing Wales and we were down 19-0 and I came on in the second half and scored three tries and we won (26-19). Crazy.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018Defence is going to be huge this weekend\u2019<\/p>\n
Such success has helped create a virtuous circle, with an expectant nation tuning in annually.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHong Kong is always big for Fiji,\u201d Kolinisau confirmed. \u201cIt was the first tournament we won as a nation and most of them will sit down and watch. We feel that support.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not that it has only been smiles and success in Asia\u2019s World City. Runners-up in 2022 and 2023, Fiji have not lifted the Hong Kong crown for seven years now.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just have to get our systems right and make sure we are connected on the field and off the field,\u201d Kolinisau said of the 2026 gameplan. \u201cTo me, defence is going to be huge this weekend. If we can be good at defending, attacking is not a problem for us.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018Let\u2019s be consistent in winning\u2019<\/p>\n
In short, Fiji need to do what they have been doing almost all season. Victors in Singapore, runners-up in Perth and New York City, the Pacific Islanders have yet to finish off the podium this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In the end, only a painful 10-7 defeat to South Africa in the final in New York last month prevented them from finishing top of the HSBC SVNS league table.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m proud of the consistency \u2014 we\u2019ve become the most consistent team in the series,\u201d Kolinisau said. \u201cI told the boys, \u2018You want to be consistent, let\u2019s be consistent in winning\u2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a process, we are on a good trajectory towards the Olympics in 2028.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Key to this success has been staying connected and true to what Kolinisau, captain when Fiji secured a historic first Olympic men\u2019s sevens gold in 2016, sees as the Fijian way.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have our values, we have our cultures and standards,\u201d the 40-year-old said. \u201cI\u2019ve told the boys you\u2019ve got to win as an individual before we win as a whole. I think that\u2019s something we\u2019ve got right. We\u2019re more connected. Everybody is moving together.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018We cut off the sugar\u2019<\/p>\n
The sort of details Kolinisau urges his charges to focus on include time keeping, stretching and even sugar intake.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t want to have a lot of sugar through the week, if we take a lot of sugar in the week, like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, then when it comes to the weekend we have high sugar spikes that then drop,\u201d the head coach explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, what we want to do is make sure we cut off the sugar, the sweet things, in the week and then we have it on Thursday because our bodies are going to use it at the weekend.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of the boys are big on sweet things and they find it hard but we talk about being number one and that\u2019s something you\u2019ve got to sacrifice.\u201d<\/p>\n
His squad appear to have agreed and put down the cakes. A sprinkling of debutants have made their mark through the season, while Kolinisau name-checks Nacani Boginisoko and Douglas Daveta as two players who have \u201creally grown into their roles in the team\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018A debut in Hong Kong\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n
And now, in time for arguably their biggest tournament of the season, Kolinisau has called up another debutant, in a story which underlines everything the head coach wants his team to represent.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe just showed up out of nowhere, he was the top try scorer in the Coral Coast (a famous annual sevens tournament featuring local club and international teams),\u201d Kolinisau said of 24-year-old Tomasi Stark.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s his first time abroad and I was telling him, \u2018Man, your debut in Hong Kong\u2026 it\u2019s huge\u2019.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Should Stark help secure his nation a 20th win in the city, not to mention a giant step towards the HSBC SVNS World Championship title, he may just become another Fijian Hong Kong sevens legend.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A morning training session at the old Hong Kong Stadium is the perfect way to prepare for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105,4277],"class_list":["post-394176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports","tag-text"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}