Aussie men's rugby sevens team's defiant stance as Olympic champions Fiji await

PARIS: The Fijians are hard to prepare for, but the Australians do not fear the reigning Olympic champions.

That's the overriding feeling out of the Australian men's rugby sevens camp ahead of their Paris 2024 semi-final showdown with Fiji, who have won 16 from 16 matches across three Olympic Games.

If Australia's men beat Fiji in the semi-finals at the Stade de France on Saturday night (AEST), they will guarantee themselves a maiden Olympic medal in rugby sevens.

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Australia's women clinched gold at the Rio 2016 Olympics, where rugby sevens made its Olympic debut, but the best Australia's men have achieved at the Olympics is seventh, where they finished at the Tokyo Games in 2021.

Australia's Ben Dowling spoke to media in Paris the morning after the team's 18-0 quarter-final triumph over the United States, which sent them through to an Olympic semi-finals for the first time.

"For Fiji we've got more time than usual with the day off, so we'll do our prep, but we always want to focus on ourself and get our bodies right first," Dowling said.

"As sevens is, it's quite free-flowing, so [we'll] have a bit of preview and analysis, but also remember the pictures in the Games show a lot of different stories than what you can preview, especially against a team like Fiji who don't have much of a plan sometimes ... so it's very hard to put a defensive plan to that."

The Fijians kept their gold medal hopes alive with a 19-15 win over Ireland.

The South Pacific nation has won three Olympic medals: two gold medals in the men's rugby sevens tournaments at the Rio 2016 and Tokyo Games, and a bronze medal in the women's rugby sevens competition in Japan three years ago.

"There's no point playing in fear here," John Manenti, the coach of the Australian men's team, told reporters after the side's quarter-final win against the US.

"I'm telling them to be brave, fire your shots. If we lose we're going to lose being brave, we're going to lose having a crack ... We're not going to die wondering, we're not going to leave this Olympics without giving it everything, and if we don't win the tournament or if we don't win a medal, it ain't going to be because of a lack of having a go."

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Manenti admitted the Fijians had been "brave" in the Paris Games tournament and said the South Pacific nation seemed to be "all diamonds" in France.

"Rightly, there's other teams that are favourites because we haven't won a tournament all year," Manenti added, "but I know the main reason around that was we just weren't able to string six good games together.

"There were tournaments where we were good for four or five games and beat Fiji and beat Argentina and beat New Zealand, beat top teams, but we just let ourselves down with a poor performance.

"Like I said, that's always been my goal; if we can nail six consistent performances, we're going to take some beating."

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The 80,000-seat Stade de France is sure to be heaving as France meets South Africa and Australia faces Fiji on Saturday night (AEST).

Thursday's rugby sevens competition drew an attendance of more than 130,000 spectators across the day.

The intensity of the crowd hit its peak when France defeated Argentina in the quarter-finals.