Two individuals who were there during the Fiji Airways Men’s 7s golden run openly expressed how they feel after 19 tournaments without a Cup title in the World Series.

Olympic Games gold medalist and captain in 2016, Osea Kolinisau, and Tokyo 2020 rugby 7s winning coach Gareth Baber says it hurts.

The two men are now on board with Kolinisau as coach and Baber the National 7s Program Director, and they’ll have to try and get Fiji back to winning ways.

For Kolinisau, it’s been hard watching from the sideline for two seasons.

‘It will always hurt, of course, i always want Fiji to win, especially after building something up with the boys in 2014, building a culture and the system of the team but to see not winning for a long time and I think it really hurts and happy to come in and try to help out with the boys’.

Baber shares similar sentiments and says Fiji can get there again.

‘It obviously hurts you know, I have a strong and emotional attachment to Fiji for a number of years you know I watched a team that I was part of and you wished them well and wanted them to do well but that’s the nature of sport, you can’t predict things, you gotta work hard and pay attention to the details of what’s gonna get you to the development of players to the point where they can go out and win tournaments, ultimately that’s what our task is now is to create that environment for players to do that’.

The Fiji 7s and Fijiana will resume training today after having a rest yesterday.

The Fijiana 7s face Australia at 4.25 pm tomorrow followed by South Africa at 7.12pm before the last pool game with Ireland at 3.02pm Saturday.

Our Fiji 7s meet Australia at 9:30 pm tomorrow.

They’ll play two games on Saturday starting with Canada at 12.33am and France at 5.43pm.

You can watch all the Fiji 7s and Fijiana pool games live on FBC TV.