WHILE Fiji 7s coach Gareth Baber has kept his run on team for this weekend’s New Zealand Sevens in Hamilton close to his chest and indications are that he could fire back with the composition of line-up from the Dubai and South Africa Sevens.
The injury-free national side had another training session at Elliot Park at Nawton, Hamilton yesterday before hitting the pool.
Led by co-captains Jerry Tuwai, who was also practising on goal kicking and kick-offs yesterday with Meli Derenalagi, the session was filled with working on the set pieces, ball retention and defence.
Baber said they were perfecting mistakes from the past two downfalls to avoid any shade of grey at the FMG Waikato Stadium this weekend.
“We worked hard in the past two tournaments.
There are some things we need to improve and we had been working hard in the past three weeks,” Baber said after the training session at Elliot Park in Dawnton, Hamilton yesterday.
“We know what is coming at us on the weekend plus the tournament format and we want to make sure that we get all the bits right.
“The competition is going to be fierce. Looking at Samoa, Australia and Argentina, we are all capable of beating each other. It brings out the best in everybody, especially us because we want to be the champ again and in every tournament we go into.
“We have the intention to be champion but there are 15 teams out there that are trying to prevent us from that. The competition is high and tough.”
To counter that toughness and to set a record of being the first team to win the title in a hat-trick, Baber is not going to give his lineup easily.
“I have the team at the back of my head. There are 13 players there, twelve will make it. Might be different from the past two outings, but we’ve trained hard.
I have combinations in my head but we’ll leave it to Friday.
We want the brightest and the fittest to go and those who trained hard to get there.” The team will wrap training on Friday after a gym session today.
