Fiji Water Flying Fijians head coach Mick Byrne says he has learned a lot about Fijian players from when he was the Drua coach as he revealed some of the challenges he faced with some of the players in the side when the franchise first started in 2022, and one of them was trying to familiarise the players with technology like how to operate computers to assess their performance.
While speaking during the fijivillage Straight Talk with Vijay Narayan, Byrne says when the Drua started in 2022, they were based in New South Wales and there were movement restrictions due to COVID-19.
He says they had all brand new computers in the players' room and for six weeks no one went in there, which had him questioning why are the players not using the computers until he realised that most of these players had never used computers before.
Byrne further says he did not manage well as a coach in the first year as it was really stressful trying to race against time to get the team to settle before they played their first Super Rugby Pacific game just 11 weeks after assembling.
He says despite them having had a great facility that they were based at in Lake Ainsworth, Lennox Head, Australia, it still did not take away the fact that most of the players were new to the environment and most of them had left their families back in Fiji for the first time.
He adds, that even some of the players were on the plane for the first time ever back then.
Byrne says after some one-on-one sessions with the players, the team management found out that none of the players had done anything since October 2020 due to COVID-19, and a lot of players had become overweight, but their mindset was perfect.
He says the players were very resilient and hardened, but it was just their body shape that was not ready for Super Rugby.
Byrne says they bonded really well as a playing group back then, and for him as a coach, he learned a lot about himself in that period of time because he found that he wanted to have success as a coach.
The Flying Fijians will play the Wallabies on 6th July in Newcastle, Australia.
They then take on Scotland on 12th July at the HFC Stadium in Suva.
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