The Fiji line-up announced to play England in the opening game of the World Cup is largely as we expected – brimming with talented players who have lit up every single one of the top leagues in the world.
Nemani Nadolo is the headline act; a Crusaders outside back who has an impossible skill set for a man of his size. Speak to any Super Rugby aficionado about the most dangerous players in their competition, and he will be the first name off the tongue.
At 6 feet 5 inches he towers above a good number of forwards, and at 126kg he outweighs them as well. And yet he has the handling and kicking abilities that many inside backs plying their trade for tier one nations would die for.
How does this come about? It’s a fairly simple answer: sevens. Rugby players in Fiji are brought up on a diet of sevens, and for years their national team in the shorter form of the game has consistently finished near, or on, the top of the World Standings.
Sevens gives the Fijians an understanding of space that fifteens players cannot grasp. It also means they have to perfect their handling skills, because inevitably the ball has to travel longer distances. It is how a man as big as most locks can handle like a fly-half.
Leone Nakawara is actually a lock, but as fans of Glasgow Warriors will attest to, he doesn’t always play like one. His offloading ability is every bit as good as any of their backs, and there are no prizes for guessing where he learnt these aspects of the game that many front five forwards elsewhere in the world simply neglect.
“In sevens you’ve got a lot of space to attack with the ball, and 15s you don’t have that much space to play with the ball so it’s different,” said Nakawara at Fiji’s World Cup team base in Weybridge on Wednesday.
“It helps my rugby skills, passing and running. Everyone in Fiji plays an open rugby style because we’re used to playing sevens.”
Video credit: Ruddy Darter
Of course to be the best in the world you need a balance – you can’t simply pick a team full of sevens players and expect to run loops around your opposition. Defences these days are good enough to shackle even the likes of Nadolo, so you have to the hard graft first, in order that the space is there for these dangerous runners to exploit.
This, says Nakawara, is where his time playing in Glasgow has been so beneficial to his game.
“We’re used to the weather and the way they (northern hemisphere) play,” he said of he and his fellow Fijians plying their trade in the Northern Hemisphere leagues.
“The big thing I learned from there is my individuality as a forward and what I’m supposed to do in the field as a forward – the set-piece rules and cleaning (out) the rucks.”
Nakawara is rapidly becoming one of the best second rows in the world, as his performances in the Pacific Nations Cup proved. He has the skills of a Fijian sevens player and is adding the discipline of a more archetypal – dare you say it, more Northern Hemisphere – lock forward.
Coach John McKee confirmed that the Fijians want to be taken more seriously; that they are no longer a team that will turn up and chuck the ball around the park for 80 minutes for a bit of a laugh.
“A lot of work goes into all of our game, it’s not just one area,” said McKee. “We need to do the work in winning the ball and other areas of controlling the game to utilise these strengths.”
He and the Fijians are here to prove that there is more to their game these days than just flair – and that should be a real worry for the big fish in the Pool of Death.
By Jamie Hosie
Follow Jamie on Twitter: @jhosie43
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