6 Dec 2013

Sport: Fiji 7s coach says players must start from scratch in South Africa

12:30 pm on 6 December 2013

After the highs of success in Dubai, Fiji sevens coach Ben Ryan says he's looking forward to see how his players respond this weekend in Port Elizabeth.

Fiji thrashed New Zealand 44-0 in the Cup semis before beating South Africa to claim their first victory in Dubai since 1998.

Ben Ryan says he was thrilled with the progress of his players, and how they dominated possession and stayed aggressive on defence.

But with Fiji now the talk of the circuit, Ryan says it will be interesting to see how the players cope with the added attention.

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It's something that I'm looking forward to seeing how they react to because there's been a lot of press talking them up. Certainly back home in Fiji it's been very positive and they're talking about the resurgence really of Fiji and I'm trying to keep everyone's feet on the ground and say it's one weekend, sevens is highly competitive and they've got to press the reset button. If we show some more real progress then we will put in some good performances this weekend. I'm interested to see how we progress this weekend and I've got a fairly open mind about it all.

Fiji open their campaign against Australia on Saturday night.