By Paul Jones
Gareth Baber is looking forward to being back in Cardiff this weekend, even if his aim is to make it a jolting Sunday afternoon for most in his home town.
Baber will return as coach of Fiji with an aim to spring a surprise by making it three defeats in successive autumn internationals for Wayne Pivac’s Wales, who have already given contrasting displays but still fallen to defeat against New Zealand and South Africa.
Baber, 49, not only played scrum-half for the Blue and Blacks during his playing days, but he also coached Cardiff Blues for a season before forging a reputation as one of the leading specialist Sevens coaches in the world.
Starting with Wales, he moved on to Hong Kong and then Fiji and it was with the South Sea Islanders he struck gold earlier this year at the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Now, he has stepped up to the task of coaching their main team, always one of the most watchable teams in the world if not the most consistent.
“I’ve played against Wales in the sevens and I always found that particularly strange but now to be back in Wales and ultimately going to the Principality Stadium to play fifteens rugby against Wales, you sort of have to stop and get a degree of perspective on how your life moves and how lucky you are and how privileged I am to be coaching Fiji,” he says.
“We’ve got a fantastic group of players here who are, in strange times, working wonders to represent their people and a staff of coaches and management who got together less than two weeks ago and have bonded very quickly into quite a strong group.”
After the best part of four-and-a-half years living in Fiji, Baber insists there will be no divided loyalties when he enters the coaching box in Cardiff.
“It’s pretty special to be back in Cardiff and to be with a Fijian team that I obviously have a strong connection with and the country that I have a strong connection with.
“We are in Cardiff and we are playing Wales but ultimately my response is to getting a performance this weekend and creating history with this group of players.
“Obviously, I’m representing Fiji but all of my thoughts are about beating the team that I grew up loving and still love. But that’s the nature of sport and this team that I love here in Fiji is the one that I’m representing.”
The Fijians opened their November tour with a comfortable 43-13 victory over Spain last weekend, running in seven tries at the Estadio Nacional Complutense.
Baber admitted the tourists were a bit rusty, however, and said they will need to lift their intensity against the Six Nations champions.
“We got a bit sticky, to begin with – we haven’t been together for long so it was good to get through some of that – but we know we’re going to have to be at another level.
Wales are coming off those consecutive home defeats to the All Blacks and the Springboks but Baber is not anticipating any favours.
“We did some good stuff against Spain, but we didn’t feel that we were clinical enough. We weren’t intense enough in our physicality in the game and one thing I do know about Wales in the Principality Stadium is they will be physical and they will try and play a quick game.
“Before we can get to the style of rugby that we do love to play we know that we have to do some hard work and we have to execute our plays with a degree of accuracy to allow us to do that.”
Fiji winger Jiuta Wainiqolo won’t be considered for this weekend’s Test after leaving the field against Spain 10 minutes into his debut with concussion.
