Updated: 7:00am – Fiji Airways Men’s National 7s team coach Gareth Baber says when he started as the coach of the national team he knew that he had to find new talents to cope with the loss of some of the stars from the Rio Olympics.
While speaking on the Straight Talk talkback show on our sister station Viti FM, Baber says he was not immediately aware of how he was going to do this.
He says he had a good group of players and he needed to assess where some of the senior players were, who had remained and what weaknesses needed to be addressed so that a squad could be built.
Baber adds that he was aware that he would lose some more players as they progressed through the year.
Baber says that he knew there was raw talent in Fiji but for him it was how he would nurture that talent and how he would take players from the local 7s tournaments to the World 7s series.
Baber says there is never going to be 12 players that he spots at a tournament, it is only going to be either one or two, because he is looking at a particular talent.
Baber will name his team for Hong Kong today.
Fiji will play Samoa at 12.43am next Saturday in their first pool match of the Hong Kong 7s.
-Fiji Village
