Men's team captains pose for a photo in advance of the 2025 Emirates Dubai 7s at The Sevens Stadium on 26 November 2025 in Dubai. Photo: Alex Ho / World Rugby
Both the Fiji men's and women's sevens teams are focused on their opening matches at this weekend's Dubai 7s tournament - the opening round of the HSBC SVNS.
Fijiana coach Richard Walker says they are looking forward to meeting the USA in their first pool game on Saturday night (NZT).
His Fiji men's counterpart Osea Kolinisau said they will need to start well and win against Argentina, who have been league winners the past two seasons.
The new format sees the top eight sevens teams in two pools each, with the top two teams in each pool advancing to the semi-finals.
The bottom two then go through the normal play-offs.
The Fijian men - defending Dubai 7s champions - are in Pool A along with Argentina, who they meet first on Saturday night, South Africa and France.
Fijiana women's 7s team are also in Pool A along with USA, New Zealand and France.
Kolinisau told reporters from the team's camp that claiming back-to-back titles is far from their focus at the moment, with the challenge being the new format they have to play with.
He said the format basically demands that the team will need to win all three of their pool matches or at least two of them to finish in the top two from their pool.
"This format is a straight quarter final, like every game you play is a quarterfinal," he said.
"And the boys know that we cannot slip up in one game. We need to be really be on our a game when we play these teams and we're not thinking about the pressure of the back to back and I told the boys we want to attack this tournament again.
"Although we're defending champions but we want to make sure that we go into the tournament ready to play our cards right, play the Fijian rugby that we've been training, and execute what we've been learning in the past couple of weeks, and make sure we get front foot and get a good start at the tournament."
Kolinisau said they have had a week in Doha playing some local clubsides in warm up matches, which gave them the opportunity to work on areas they identified as needing work-ons.
It included focusing on discipline, cutting out silly plays that had caused them matches in the previous 2024/2025 series, plus upping their communication in games, especially when the players start getting tired on the field.
"We we're focusing on one game at a time and I told the boys we can not look past any team, and let's take one game at a time," the former Fijian captain stated.
"Discipline is very important, especially in this game., with this format you gotta be very disciplined, and your communication better be clear.
"We're doing a lot of that in training, and we're making sure that the boys understand that if we do undisciplined things in the game the boys understand that we get a yellow card. That's something we're re telling the boys, that we gotta be disciplined. We don't want cards in the game.
"We want to have seven players always on the field and on top of that our communication has to be right up there, especially playing Argentina and them."
Kolinisau said the players have been told that the series will not be easy as all tournaments will have the same format, with tough matches right through from pool play.
"We have Argentina and South African, and that's going to be the normal going forward in the series," he said.
"There's no running away, there's no easy game anymore."
He said the players are ready to play this weekend and looks forward to seeing the team put to use game plans they have been practising.
The Fiji men's sevens team have seasoned hands in Waisea Nacuqu, Terio Veilawa, George Bose, Jeremaia Matana, Joseva Talacolo and Sevuloni Mocenacagi.
Match schedule (all NZT):
- Fiji v Argentina, 10:10pm, Saturday
- Fiji v South Africa, 1:16am Sunday
- Fiji v France, 5:12am Sunday
Women's team captains pose for a photo in advance of the 2025 Emirates Dubai 7s at The Sevens Stadium on 26 November 2025 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Photo: Alex Ho / World Rugby
Fijiana 7s confident
Fijiana women's sevens team head coach Richard Walker believes their off-season work has prepared them for the Dubai event.
New players, the return of some old hands and the challenge of playing in a 'must-win' pool competition, has been cause of excitment for the team, ahead of their Pool A clashes against United States of America, New Zealand and France.
"We've had a couple of good camps, meaning that competition has been really high," Walker told the media on Wednesday.
"It's good to have players like Vani Buleki come back in and push the rest of the squad, Reapi Ulunisau come back in and push the squad as well.
"But also for the girls that are currently being in the squad before they come back, is that they've lifted their game as well. So it's been a benefit for everybody, and for us, I think we have a really good squad, and we have a good balance across the board of different areas that we can look at, defensively and to attack."
Walker said having arrived earlier in Dubai has helped in settling down and adapting to the weather there.
He believes their preparation have been "really good", with a scrimmage session against the Canadian team on Wednesday, where they played live game situations.
"The girls have adapted to the time zone and had some really good sessions these last couple of days," Walker said.
"No injuries so far, which is a good thing always. We had a scrimmage with Canada and it's always good to go and play a different competition instead of running around against ourselves."
The Fijiana played against New Zealand and Australia in a warm-up tournament late last month, and have worked on key areas identified.
Walker said they want to start strong in Dubai and have the USA as their first pool opponent.
"We really want to have a good start and obviously all the teams are thinking that," he said.
"But for us we just want to have a good start and then obviously work from there. We're just finally here to play in Dubai and then to see what stuff is going to work and what stuff that we need to work on.
"It's a long season, but we definitely looking forward to playing our first tournament."
Walker said being part of the new format and playing as one of the top eight teams in the world means alot for women's rugby in Fiji.
The challenge now for them will be maintaining their standing in the top eight as "now the competition even increases".
"There's no easy games, now we know that every game, practically, is a semifinal or a final, and that's how we want to approach it.
"We take it game by game, but we know that every game is important. As you know, in sevens, it's a game of seconds, inches, all those little things.
"For us, hopefully we're on the right side of those inches in those seconds."
In their final days heading into the Dubai even kick off Walker said the players spirits are high, with discussions centering around "no matter what the score is, we're just going to keep pushing".
He said the new format means anything can happen and it could come down to three teams pushing for one spot in the semifinal.
"Three teams in the pool could will have two wins and one loss. So then it comes to points differential, so no matter what game we play, every game to us is we treat it like it's a final."
Match schedule (all NZT)
- Fijiana v USA, 8:20pm, Saturday
- Fijian v France, 10: 59pm Saturday
- Fijiana v New Zealand, 2:27am, Sunday
