The 27-year-old New Zealand-born Tongan is part of the Japanese team streaking towards an Olympic medal in Rio.
Advertisement
World Series champions Fiji won through to the semi-finals of the inaugural Olympic sevens tournament on Wednesday, sending their biggest rivals, 12-times world series champions New Zealand, back home.
“When New Zealand and Fiji play, it’s always a final”, – captain Kolinisau revelled in Fiji’s victory.
Also, unfortunately for Australian fans, neither are the scrapping Aussie team which paid dearly for deflating day one pool performances and failing to make the last four following a 22-5 quarter-final loss to second seeds South Africa.
“We’ve got one aim and that’s to win gold medal, not silver or bronze”.
“Sometimes it’s unsafe to set out goals as a coach, but we’re number one in the world, we’re not trying to be arrogant, we’re saying this is what we want”.
Australia beat Pool B victor South Africa 12-5 to move through as one of the two best third-place finishers, meaning those two countries will meet again later Wednesday in the quarterfinals.
“It’s pretty insane. We’ve been told we’ve got to turn our phones off between games”, he said.
“Getting to the Olympics in itself is an achievement but to knock out New Zealand along the way is pretty special. We’re not looking for any excuses, Fiji deservedly beat us”.
Fiji skipper Osea Kolinisau finished a brilliant length-of-the-field try to open the game many thought would take place in the final and Jerry Tuwai skipped through the All Blacks defence to add a second for the Pacific islanders.
New Zealand’s Gillies Kaka, right, is tackled by Britain’s Sam Cross, left, and teammate during the men’s rugby sevens match at the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2016.
Lemeki said all the pressure was now on Fiji, and the Japanese team would play with freedom because every game after the group stage was a bonus. “I thought we’d be lucky to make the quarters, let alone the semis”, he said.
“As of yesterday, they know who we are”.
“A lot of other teams have put a lot of emphasis on sevens, they’ve centralised, they actually gone in and built their depth in a lot of areas and in some of smaller countries the national players play 15s and sevens so they’re pretty good players”.
Advertisement
A win in that match would guarantee a historic gold or silver medal while defeat would send them into the bronze medal game with the loser of Britain v South Africa.
