“Not an excuse”.
Swire Shipping Fijian Drua head coach Mick Byrne said this when queried about the Drua’s disappointing performances in away games during the 2023 Shop N Save Super Rugby Pacific competition.
This season, the Drua only managed to win one away game against the Moana Pasifika and lost against the Waratahs, Reds and Highlanders.
“We are travelling more. This was I think our first two-week travel trip,” Byrne said.
“We spend every weekend in airports and we are getting used to it but certainly not an excuse.”
Byrne said a lot of teams prepared from Monday to Thursday and travelled on a Friday for a game.
“We are actually travelling two days earlier, so we are missing a day’s training on a lot of occasions when we are travelling, that is every two weeks.”
He said when the season started, things like putting up consistent performances on the pitch were discussed, and Bryne indicated this yesterday during the press conference that over the past few weeks, they had not been on that line.
“We allowed sort of things to get into our way over the last couple of weeks, travelling and being on the road for two weeks and we have learned a lot from that.
“These are no excuses but our players are in the early parts of their professional careers, which is one year for most of them and consistency is one of the things that is lacking.”
Bryne said experienced players that had been around in the professional set-up would bring in consistency and there was a need for the team to re-look at the basics before moving forward.
“We will keep building to help players understand on the need for consistency.
“We did not go back but rather picked up from where we left and that might have been a bit of a symptom of what happened was after we had some success, we kept moving on rather than going back and starting again,” he said.
The Drua face the Melbourne Rebels on Saturday.
