“Getting to the Olympics in itself is an achievement but to knock out New Zealand along the way is pretty special”.
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Rarely have we seen such stale and lack lustre rugby on display from the All Blacks who were shockingly beaten in their first game by Japan, thus wiping the fever pitch anticipation that had been garnered heading into rugby sevens inaugural appearance at the Olympics. “I’m probably one of the most hated ones at the moment”.
Not content with upsetting sevens powerhouse New Zealand 14-12 in the pool stage on 9 August, day the Japanese, ranked 10 of the 12 teams competing in the tournament, subsequently dispatched world sevens series regulars Kenya before snatching victory over France with a last-gasp try in the quarter finals.
When asked about his team’s giant-killing run in Rio, Lemeki didn’t have an insightful answer. “I don’t know!. Personally I thought we’d be lucky to make the quarters, let alone the semi. So I don’t know what’s happened here”, he added. It took us a while to win a World Cup [after 1987].
Japan built their combinations during a two-week camp at Narrabeen on Sydney’s northern beaches, alongside the Australian players, earlier this year.
As Fiji gets ready to take on Japan in the first ever Rio Olympics 7s semifinal tomorrow morning, the Washington Post reports that if Fiji win both matches tomorrow they will bring home gold to a nation that the team says loves rugby more than Brazilians love soccer.
“There’s no pressure on us, the pressure’s on the big teams, they are the ones supposed to be winning the medals, not us”.
Ryan says sometimes it’s risky to set out goals as a coach, but Fiji is No 1 in the world, and Ryan says they are not trying to be arrogant – they are saying this is what we want.
Switching off their phones is one thing the Japanese have in common with their semi-final opponents Fiji, who have also imposed a social media ban.
South Africa will now face Great Britain in the semi-final on Thursday, and given what we’ve seen so far at the tournament, it is impossible to call.
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“I used to think as England coach, “Little old Fiji can come to these big occasions and it’ll all be too much for them”. Having knocked out New Zealand 12-7 in the quarters, Fiji coach Ben Ryan was taking the opposite approach from the carefree Japanese.
