NATIONAL sevens head Alifereti Dere will try and minimise the penalty count against his side when they play in the next leg of the HSBC Sevens World Series.
The former national captain said penalties against his side nearly cost them the Gold Coast 7s title three weeks ago.
In the semi-finals of the tournament, Ilai Tinai was flashed a yellow card while playing against South Africa.
Fiji won the game 21-10 but Dere admitted the match could have gone either way.
He said it was important all seven players remained on the field for the whole duration of the match.
"We cannot afford to lose any players to the sin-bin," Dere said.
"For us to win games or title or even the series, we will need all seven players on the field till the last whistle of the game," he said.
"Our game in Gold Coast was good but one of our weaknesses was the number of penalties that went against us."
He said in the remaining weeks he had with the side, he would work on ways to counter the scrums and rucks and loose ball without getting penalised.
"We just have to focus on the basics laws of the game and make our game plan according to that.
"Because we only get penalised if the referees see us making a wrong move but we need to do things the right way.
"If players continue make the same mistake, they are first warned by the referee and if the referee sees that the players keep on doing the same thing then he will yellow card players.
"So that is one thing we will work on during our trainings so that we don't make those mistakes and we have seven players on the field for the whole game," Dere said.
The Dubai 7s will be held on November 30 and December 1 after which the South Africa 7s will be played on December 8 and 9.