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New recruit Jarryd Hayne is not in Fiji’s preliminary Twickenham Sevens squad this weekend, the last tournament before the Rio Olympics where Fiji will start favourite for gold.
That in itself looms as historic as the Fijians have never won an Olympic medal of any colour in 13 Games from 119 representatives.
Remembering that the squads are not confirmed until Friday night AEST, if Hayne doesn’t play it would be a major blunder for three reasons.
More Jarryd Hayne:
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Waisale Serevi, Fiji’s living legend of sevens rugby, was one of the many excited at Hayne’s decision to leave the San Francisco 49s to follow his Olympic dream, adding the Australian with a Fiji passport ticks all the Sevens boxes.
And when Serevi speaks, Fiji as a nation listens.
The decision facing coach Ben Ryan comes on top of the Fijians being in total command at last weekend’s Paris Sevens in the final against Samoa, but mown down in a shock result.
Fiji opened up a 21-0 lead midway through the first half playing brilliant Sevens rugby as you would expect, and went into the break 26-7.
But for some unaccountable reason the Fijians took the foot off the pedal and Samoa stormed home with 22 unanswered points to take the trophy 29-26
That was a timely Olympic Games wake-up call.
And the third section of the blunder is the Fijian squad want Hayne to play.
So where to now for Jarryd Hayne?
Unless Ryan makes a last-minute change, Hayne won’t get a chance to play in any meaningful match conditions which should almost shut the door on Olympic selection.
Waisele Serevi looms as the prime mover, if not for Twickenham, then Rio.
Serevi knows Hayne is a typical Fijian-type footballer with express speed, safe hands, and a defence that can be either ball and all, or tackling low.
The latter is more dangerous to allow the attacker to slip a pass, so the ball and all tackle best suits the Sevens.
Don’t take any notice of the naysayers who reckon Hayne hasn’t enough time to digest Sevens – he’s been a Sevens type footballer playing rugby league, sizing up opportunities in a nano-second.
That’s the key to Sevens with all that space and only seven defenders, thinking on the run at speed and knowing where supports are.
For the record, Fiji tops the 2016 IRB World Sevens standings.
1 – Fiji 166 points
2 – South Africa 152
3 – New Zealand 145
4 – Australia 127
5 – Argentina 107
6 – USA 100
7 – Kenya 95
8 – Samoa 84
9 – England 82
10 – France 75
11 – Scotland 68
12 – Wales 46
13 – Canada 35
And to make it even more interesting, Fiji is drawn with Australia, England, and Wales in Pool B at Twickenham.
Let’s see what happens.