Now that the Fiji Rugby Union has extended Gareth Baber’s contract as coach of the Fiji 7s team for another year, we have our work cut out.
With that now out of the way, the work to establish ourselves as real contenders for the top prize resumes.
We sort of faltered along the way in the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series which ended abruptly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.
However, that does not take away the fact that all eyes will be on how we prepare for the next big one in Japan.
Yesterday’s confirmation means Baber will coach the national 7s team to defend the Olympic Games gold medal in July next year.
Coaching the Fiji 7s team, Baber said, was a huge task and he was grateful to be given the opportunity to continue his journey with the side.
FRU chief executive officer John O’Connor yesterday announced Baber’s contract extension until the Tokyo Olympic Games.
“We are glad to sign Gareth on for another year and to have him take charge of the 2020/2021 HSBC World Sevens Series and the 2021 Olympic Games in Japan,” said O’Connor.
Baber’s contract, he said, was to have expired on February 5, 2021 had the Tokyo 2020 Games taken place.
“We’ve had to make adjustment with the postponement of the games to July next year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Whatever the reasons given, the fact that we have our national coach in place means we must have the processes in place to ensure a very strong campaign.
It isn’t going to be easy either as we face the impact of COVID-19. In fact all teams will be impacted greatly by a lack of top quality competitions leading up to the event and the closure of borders.
So in a sense we are all in the same boat leading up to the Olympics.
The key now is how well we can prepare our team given the circumstances.
That does place pressure on the national coach to organise our preparation, factoring in all the shortcomings. At least one thing we have right now is time.
That is important in the greater scheme of things.
It means we have the platform to address issues we picked up before the end of the 7s series. While time is of the essence, it is also on our side.
Baber must now identify all our weaknesses, factor in appropriate measures to address them, monitor how other teams are preparing, which is not going to be easy, and build up confidence and a workable combination.
He’s got almost a year to do that. We have a massive challenge before us, however, we have a great platform to work from.
Baber’s headache will be on how well he can prepare our team without top quality opposition, and without standards to gauge our team against.
Hopefully the series resumes in time to allow us to use that as a gauge.
However, attention will be on how well we use up the added time we now have to prepare our team.
We look forward with anticipation to our Olympics campaign. Go Fiji, go.
