2016-2017 World Sevens Series
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damn that Fijian had some wheels
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and again.
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some poor defence out there
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that was a forward pass, but fiji watch dj and the old dog scores
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unforced errors costing us
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blown a couple of scoring chances now
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Sevens seems a relatively simple game to me. If you have the ball, you are going to score. No one can defend for seven minutes and stop you from scoring. The most important part of the game therefore isn't attack but the most important part of the game is maintaining or gaining possession. The problem with Tietjens is we were taking the ball into contact too much and giving the other teams a chance to take the ball away from us. Today there were too many risky passes. In 15's a 50/50 pass can make sense because there are less tries per minute. In 7's it is best to not throw that 50/50 pass and just score two phases later.
Some of those errors were genuinely caused by Fijian pressure, however.
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@Chris-B. said in 2016-2017 World Sevens Series:
Ideally you want lots of people that are big, fast and skillful.
Seems like we've got plenty of big options, plenty of fast options and plenty of skilful options - some that have two, but not many who have all three.
I still think decision making is more important than all 3 of those attributes. Obviously, a good decision maker with no size or pace is not going to be a threat. However, the Fijians generally made great decisions. They avoided contact and threw hardly any risky passes. They did kick too much, however.
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NZ 7s has pumped out countless Super Rugby quality backs over the last 20 years - not one player in the current squad fit that bill.
I understand the landscape has changed and more younger players are being brought into Super Rugby but there are still plenty of talent not being used - surely talent could have been identified at last years U19 nationals - and this doesnt even include the players at the 7s nationals that performed well and got overlooked (e.g. Visinia, Emerson etc).
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This post-Olympic year should be used to test several new players and player combinations. I hope the coaches will pick a different group for the Sydney 7s, the core group (including the likes of Curry, Forbes, Mikkelson and Stowers) and some other newbies (Ruru, Emerson etc) and also Guildford (who again captained an invitational team to winning the Darwin 7s last weekend). I'd like to see Luke Masirewa back in there as well.
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@trainmuch Shouldn't compare XVs with 7s. It's a different code that requires a different type of fitness and skills set. 7s players don't have to be at Super Rugby level; they have to be at the best level of 7s, and you're right, the NZ men have slipped down the slope. I don't think it's because we don't have the players, but because we don't have the right coach and the right selection of players. I hope the new coach, Laidlaw, is going to be able to correct that.
