Q&A: Aussie 7s coach Andy Friend on the Olympics and the future of Sevens in Australia
The Australian Men's Sevens team returned to training at Narrabeen last week in preparation for the upcoming World Series which begins in Dubai in December.
After an unforgettable few months, commentator Gordon Bray interviewed coach Andy Friend at a Rugby Business Network event in Sydney on Monday evening and spoke about the Olympic experience and the future of Sevens in Australia.
Below are some of Friend's most insightful comments.
On the Olympic tournament:
We gave ourselves every chance, we worked extremely hard leading into the tournament and we had the belief and the vision that we would go on and win that gold medal. Unfortunately in the game of Sevens things don’t always go your way and if you make errors you get hurt.
We played our worst game of football all year in the opening game against France. We were thrilled to watch the girls win their gold medal the night before, but in a funny way it probably put a bit of pressure on us and we didn’t play the way we w