Well done boys. This is by far the best performance by any team with such young and inexperienced players. It took New Zealand a whole year to gel in new players but these guys are simply amazing.
Experience (or rather lack of it) is our biggest hurdle and the only way to fix it is to lose some more games.
On the technical front, it seems Gordon has countered our simple attack strategy that has worked will with other teams. Fiji effectively plays a two-man game. The ball carrier breaks the line and offloads to a runner. What New Zealand did was mark quite effectively both the line breaker and the support and overpower the two men to win possession.The Solution:
Fiji needs to explore different attack patterns. Serevi for example had multiple strategies in his game plan.
1. Semesi breaks the line, takes in two players hence creates a gap (atleast somewhere). The ball distributor and play maker exploit this gap. This works well with slow, physical opponents.
2. Ryder (need i say more?).
3. Running ball offload (effective against a team that can out-pace you) although extensive training is required to pull this off effectively.
For all these (few of many others) attack patterns, combination and experience is vital.
This team needs to gel together before the coach can introduce complex attack patters instead of this very simple two man game approach.
Image sourced from: www.irbsevens.com [link]
