FRUSTRATED players nearly cost Fiji games in the past few legs of the HSBC Sevens World Series.
National sevens coach Alifereti Dere made the comments yesterday before he took players through their afternoon training drills in Suva.
He said it was evident, especially in the last leg where Fiji went down in the bowl competition of the Wellington 7s and bowed out in the semi-finals of the Las Vegas 7s.
"In the last leg, the boys were frustrated in the games very easily," the former national rep said.
"That nearly cost us the game and was also the result why the scores were so close with our opponents," he said.
Dere admitted frustration was the reason why the penalty count against our national side was so high.
"When our players get frustrated, they make some high tackles and use illegal tactics.
"Especially in rucks, we were penalised a lot and the more penalties we get the more frustrated the players get."
He said he had talked to the players regarding the issue and wanted none of it as they aim to retain the Hong Kong 7s title.
An area in which the side is still not secure in is the defence.
Dere said Wednesday's training session revealed that defence was still their biggest weakness.
"From the videos we saw of our training session on Wednesday, we saw that we still need improvements in our defence and we will continue working on that."
Fiji has been pooled with Hong Kong, Spain and Canada for the Hong Kong 7s tournament and Dere is wary of his opponents.
He said Ilai Tinai and Osea Kolinisau would share the rover's position while Samisoni Viriviri would be on the wing and Sakiusa Gavidi would play at halfback.