With five consecutive losses, the Atlanta Sevens proved a tough tournament for a group of girls continuing to come to terms with the effect that Cyclone Winston had had on family and friends back home.
As a result, Fijiana have dropped below USA to eighth in the overall standings as the second North American stopover on the HSBC World Rugby Women’s Sevens Series in Langford, Canada, looms into view.
But captain Ana Maria Roqica, Fijiana’s most experienced player with 12 world series tournaments under her belt, says the overall picture is nothing but positive under head coach Chris Cracknell and his assistant, Iliesa Tanivula.
“We have learned a lot of things from Chris and Tani and training with the boys has been really instructive too. We have been improving a lot both in attack and defence and we just want to keep taking things forward,” insisted the 28-year-old, who made her series debut in Guangzhou in the 2012-13 season.
Speaking like a true Fijian, she added: “One of the areas we continue to work on is offloading out of contact, as we want to keep the ball alive not kill it.”
Focusing on fitness
As well as observing the men’s world series champions at first hand, Roqica says the opportunity to play against some of the best teams in the world has also been invaluable in their sevens education.
“We lost against New Zealand in the Dubai semi-final and we learned a lot of things from playing them; they are so skilful and they are fitter than us. It made us realise the level of fitness that’s required and we’ve worked hard on that aspect of our game, with two training sessions a day for the last month or so.”
After Langford, the world series has just one more tournament left to run, in Clermont-Ferrand, France, at the end of May.
Attention will then turn to the Olympic Games in Rio where Fijiana will be hoping to win a medal of some description.
“It’s real and it’s in front of us and Chris always has to talk to us about the need to win on the series too," said Roqica, whose side will face Atlanta runners-up New Zealand, USA and Spain in Pool B in Langford.
“I missed the Sevens World Cup in Russia and my dream now is to be part of the squad of 12 that competes in Rio. If we can’t get gold, we will try to get a medal of some form.”
If they achieve that then it will be Fijiana, and not their more famous male counterparts, who create history as Fiji's first Olympic medallists.
