“We’re very happy for our boys and proud of coach Ben Ryan”. The coach and the players have worked at this day for months and they’ve done it. “But the last few years have been incredible and I’ll always be thankful for helping Fiji find my fire again”.
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Fiji’s English coach Ben Ryan, who will now step down from the role, said: “We did say we wanted to show people the way to play the Fijian way”.
“We were an average team before he came in and he lifted the level”.
This humbleness masks the fact that rugby sevens is Fiji’s national sport, and that the team already have superstar status in their country.
“The island won’t be having parties in sporadic parts of country, it will be across the entire nation, 355 islands, and it will continue for some time”, he predicted.
“It’s a massive achievement to get a first medal for your country, especially a gold medal”, said Kolinisau, the most-experienced Fijian ever on the global sevens circuit. “Probably when we wake up tomorrow, it will dawn on us what we’ve achieved here”.
A breathtaking display of running power and a penchant for incessant offloading helped Fiji stretch out an astonishing 29-0 lead at half-time, Leone Nakarawa a particularly devastating presence as GB completely wilted. The games are played on a full field, with seven players in a team and with halves of seven minutes instead of 40.
In a sevens masterclass, the Fijians avoided contact and the long-pass game, putting faith in Ryan s “no reward without risk” gameplan of off-loading to keep possession.
CORRECTS FROM BRONZE MEDAL MATCH TO GOLD MEDAL MATCH – Britain’s Dan Norton, left, is tackled by Fiji’s Osea Kolinisau, during the men’s rugby sevens gold medal match at the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, Aug. 11, 2016.
Britain joined the praise for the Pacific islanders. “That’s punching above most of the sports here”. “We’ve got Tokyo in four years, a year after Rugby World Cup in Japan, so I can only see rugby expanding in both forms of the game”, Beaumont said. Fifteen a six rugby was played at the 1924 Games.
National carrier Fiji Airways said it would be serving only Fijian beer on its flights in in a gesture of celebration.
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Ryan said a normally three-hour journey from the airport to the capital city had taken nine hours the last time the team returned after winning the Sevens World Series, with families bringing their kids in front of the bus for pictures and the like; their triumphant return this time might last days.
