The indepth focuses on the Drua Men’s team's journey in the 3rd year of the Shop N Save Super Rugby Pacific Competition, the team's challenges, the support required, player management, injuries, discipline, building a solid financial foundation of the team, game venue successes and challenges, and solutions that lie ahead.
The Swire Shipping Fijian Drua Men’s squad is the youngest, even in their third year of the Shop N Save Super Rugby Pacific, with the average age being about 24.8 years.
During fijivillage Straight Talk with Vijay Narayan, Drua CEO Mark Evans says there is a cluster of players between the ages of 23 to 27 years old and there are some other groups of younger ones in the main squad in the likes of Isaiah Armstrong-Ravula, Mesake Vocevoce, Waqa Nalaga and Isikeli Rabitu.
He says he has never seen any age profile like that in a professional rugby squad which is extraordinarily unusual.
Evans further says not only a lot of these players are young in terms of training age, but they are actually quite young in terms of just pure age.
He says if we look at successful teams in all sports, it is extremely unusual that they have do have a balanced age profile.
When asked about the team’s mental toughness when it comes to certain decision-making in some of the toughest games, and what type of work is needed in these situations, Evans says a lot of it needs patience and also a lot of it needs learning from experience.
He says it is almost impossible to replicate the pressure of an actual game for example when they played against the Blues in round 1 of the Shop N Save Super Rugby Pacific this year where they had a good start before the Blues had a good 20 minutes afterwards denying the Drua possession.
Evans says they learned from that and in the following week, they were in the same situation again when they played Moana Pasifika and they nearly did it again but they were better than the previous week.
He says some of it is purely learning from experience and using it to learn and grow.
He adds the other bit of it is scenario planning where they try and set scenarios for the team to solve problems of some of the situations which also takes quite a lot of time.
Evans says the longer these players play the game at a very high level, the easier it becomes and it is true that because of the age profile, they still have a lot of growth in that area and everyone in the organisation recognises that.
The Fijian Drua Men will take on the Waratahs at 1.05pm this Saturday in Lautoka while the Drua Women will take on the Waratahs at 3.35pm.
In other matches this weekend, the Hurricanes will host the Rebels at 6.05pm Friday, the Brumbies will take on Moana Pasifika at 8.35pm Friday, the Blues will play the Crusaders at 6.05pm Saturday and Western Force will take on the Reds at 8.35pm
The expectations from the home crowd and fans now are higher and they are sort of more invested in the game rather than the event, which is good.
This was revealed by Swire Shipping Fijian Drua CEO Mark Evans during fijivillage Straight Talk with Vijay Narayan.
Evans says it is no secret that the Drua are tough to beat at home and he believes the crowd has changed a bit.
He says the crowd is now reacting more to the events on the pitch and there are quiet patches, whereas last year, there were no quiet patches at all.
He adds he got the impression early last year that they were still, almost happy to be there despite the result.
Evans further says he feels this year’s win over the Crusaders was a much more conclusive one than last year.
Meanwhile, Drua Head of Commercial and Marketing, Shane Hussein says the win over the Crusaders at home two weeks ago was very helpful as the partners were happy with the results especially beating the defending champions back-to-back on our home ground.
Hussein says they received calls and messages from their sponsors after that game expressing their delight.
He says if the team instills that sense of pride, then the partnership withstands the test of results.
He says he believes the Drua is doing that quite well.
Meanwhile, the Swire Shipping Fijian Drua will take on the Waratahs at 1.05pm this Saturday in a double header event where the Rooster Chicken Fijian Drua Women will also play the Waratahs Women at 3.35pm Saturday, and both games will be held at Churchill Park, Lautoka.
Swire Shipping Fijian Drua CEO Mark Evans has revealed that they will be starting a Drua Academy Program where they will contract players as young as 15 to 16 years old.
While speaking during fijivillage Straight Talk with Vijay Narayan, Evans said they are going to put more resources into this program to prevent young players going overseas.
Evans says they want these young players playing for their respective schools in the Vodafone Super Deans Competition but they don’t want these players just sitting there just to get picked up, so they have to get better talent IDs and put them into the Drua Academy program.
He says once they get these players into the program, then a percentage of them go into the Drua development.
Evans says they will still recruit players from the Skipper Cup and the under 20s competition, but they have to get better at identifying the best talent earlier.
He says they are working on trying not to use some of their senior players too early, hoping that some of them would come back if they tend to leave for overseas contracts so that they can start with the Drua and end with the Drua.
He adds the HPU has also done a great job on the Under 20s but it tends to be recruiting players between the age of 17 to 19 years old.
Evans says Drua players like Selestino Ravutaumada and Junior Ratuva went overseas at the age of 15 and 16 years old respectively and now they have come back because things did not work out well for them one way or the other.
Evans says they will be looking to get this Drua Academy program up and running sometime between August to September this year.
You can watch the full Straight Talk interview with Evans and Drua Manager Commercial and Marketing, Shane Hussein on our website, fijivillage. Meanwhile, the Swire Shipping Fijian Drua will take on the Chiefs at 6.30pm this Saturday in Waikato in round 4 of the Shop N Save Super Rugby Pacific. In other matches this weekend, the Crusaders will host the Hurricanes at 6.05pm tomorrow, the Rebels will play the Reds at 8.35pm tomorrow, Western Force will take on Moana Pasifika at 11pm, the Highlanders will host the Brumbies at 3.35pm Saturday and the Waratahs will play the Blues at 8.35pm Saturday.
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