Starting anew in this new rugby season
It all needs a fresh start in the new rugby season. It’s that time of the year where we bid farewell to the rugby year that was, and herald in the New Year with renewed vigour and hopes that it brings with it good rugby tidings.
It’s that time of the year where we look back and ponder what we could have done better to achieve the desired result and maximum outcome.
It’s that time where we plan for the future and hope new resolutions will help provide a better tomorrow.
Today the Fiji Airways Flying Fijians will end its season with the test match against France in Paris. We hope the John McKee-coached side will bow out in style, capping off the season with a hiss and a roar. Since our first encounter with France in 1964, we have yet to win after nine outings.
But it’s a good platform to gauge our performance ahead of the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan.
It’s our last hit-out against a Top 10 rugby nation before the four-yearly global showpiece and it would be a confidence booster if we give the French a fair crack.
It has been a remarkable year for rugby, most notably the achievement of our Fiji Airways Fijian Drua in winning the Australian National Rugby Championship for the first time.
Our Fiji Airways Fijian 7s team is in Dubai for the first tournament of the 2018-19 World Sevens Series aiming to make a winning start at the Sevens this week.
We had high hopes of making 2018 our own, but ended up with no 7s silverware in the cabinet at Rugby House, missing out on the series title, Commonwealth Games and Rugby Sevens World Cup.
Time is a great healer and it’s time to strike for coach Gareth Baber’s men if we are make 7s rugby our business.
Apart from selecting a new captain in Kalione Nasoko, Baber has included new faces building up for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics
Baber should not rely on overseas players again, but develop local players for the next two years.
This is a chance for Baber to turn things around and he needs to convince the Fiji Rugby Union that he is the right man to lead the charge at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. We can only rise from the fall, learn from defeat and start anew if we are to make a new mark in the world of rugby.