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UR7S is delighted to welcome leading Fijian rugby writer Culden Kamea to our team as a columnist. Culden will soon be writing features with regular updates of what is going down on the sevens mad island of Fiji. Here Culden previews Fiji’s World Cup campaign. Bula Culden!

Bula Sports fans, by the time you read this on Tuesday, our national rugby 7s team will be in Dubai and the main group of our rugby 7s nuts from Fiji, led by Mr. OHS himself, Kenny Zinck, will be touching down in the desert sands of planet earth’s most exciting new metropolis, to defend our title, the IRB Rugby Sevens World Cup.

Fiji, our home and jewel of the pacific, will once again be in the eye of a global media storm, as our boys; to a man - all sons of Fiji, watched by hundreds of millions of television viewers around the world, take to the field to represent each and every one of us who call this place home - Christian and Hindu, Muslim and Sikh, I-Taukei and descendants of Girmityas, colonists, early settlers of all shades and a few late-comers, by virtue of marriage, work or business interests who have also come to call Fiji home.

They will be cheering in the villages, boarding schools and community halls, cheering in the squatter settlements like in Mumbai for “Slumdog Millionaire”. In many parts of Fiji, landowners, tenants and the landless will all be cheering side-by-side for their Fiji team.

They will be cheering in the barracks, police stations and hopefully under Colonel Ioane Naivalurua’s Yellow Ribbon initiative, cheering also in the Max and other prison cells.

For once, our politicians and interim government Ministers will be cheering for the same side – Voreqe and Lai, Mick and Mahen, big Freddie C and tiny Mere T, “Go Fiji go”.

Our collective voice will trigger barely a ripple on the global sea and register less than a wiggle on the Richter scale, but it will be a rare collective voice of one nation, one people, one pulse, cheering as one, “Go Fiji go!”

Nothing seems to unite our country anymore, except 7s rugby. Neither religion nor language, politics or sport, music or our constitution; nothing except our national rugby 7s team.

Which raises the eternal question: Did we pick the right team?

Courtesy of Fiji TV last Sunday afternoon, I watched replays of all of Fiji’s games at the 2005 IRB Rugby 7s World Cup in Hong Kong which I also personally attended.

What stood out like a beacon was the cool and calm confidence that the boys had in each other. The patience, skill and composure as they swung the ball around in typical free-flowing Fiji fashion, made to look so easy, but etched across all faces at all times was very focussed concentration and vision, scouting, checking, probing all options before committing and executing brilliant scoring plays.

Vili Satala and Marika Vunibaka were outstanding contributors, so much younger, sharper and faster. Apolosi Satala played every minute of every game such was (and still is) his fitness and importance to Fiji. Man-mountain Semisi Naevo was unstoppable in attack and a terror on defence.

Jone Daunivucu was outstanding in the backs, as too were Ryder, Bobo, Delasau and of course the mercurial genius Serevi.

So what of our 2009 Fiji rugby 7s team in Dubai?

My starting seven in the first pool game would be - Apisai Naevo (Captain), Vereniki Goneva, Apolosi Satala, Peni Rokodiva, Jone Daunivucu, Vilimoni Delasau and Orisi Sareki.

The key will be how quickly Apolosi Satala adapts to sevens rugby coming straight out of his tough fifteens club commitments in England and how well the new kids on the block – Tuwai, Suka and Sareki step up to the mark.

Coach Tanivula will have to intelligently work his bench players into the pool games so that they give the old hands a break and at the same time allow the reserves the chance to acquire a taste of IRB 7s World Cup rugby in Dubai before the play-offs.

As in Hong Kong in 2005, where Fiji just snuck past Argentina in the quarterfinals, courtesy of a Sireli Bobo length of the field flying touch down in injury time and a Waisale Serevi semi-final try in sudden death against Ben Gollings to sink England, Cup final day in Dubai 2009 will be a killer.

One mistake; one missed tackle, one dropped pass at a crucial moment is all that it will take from the quarterfinals onwards and our dream will end; Fiji crushed and defeated. Game’s over. A nation will cry; unkind words will spew out across the mediascape. Heads will roll.

But until and only if that happens, we have hope, yes hope that our Fiji rugby 7s team to Dubai will be good enough to pull it off. That’s all that we can do – hope for the best!

God bless our Fiji team and God bless all the other teams at the 2009 IRB Rugby 7s World Cup in Dubai. May good sportsmanship and fair play prevail. May the best team win. Go Fiji go!

God bless Fiji.