Fiji sevens coach Gareth Baber says the ongoing uncertainly over the coronavirus pandemic makes it difficult for the Olympic and World Series champions to plan too far ahead.
But the Welshman believed the global pause was an opportunity for the team to reflect, reassess and come out stronger.
Fiji huddle together during the Los Angeles leg of the World Sevens Series. Photo: Mike Lee - KLC fotos for World Rugby
It's been three months since the last tournament on the Men's World Series was held in Vancouver before the season was halted in response to Covid-19.
The Fijian players had continued to train individually in their home villages although Baber admitted it was not easy to keep track of everyone's progress.
"If you get a chance to look at the videos of our boys training it is with old oil drums or oil cans filled with cement on a pole, lying on whatever they can to do their benchpress or press above a head," he said.
"If it's running it's up an old track and a gravelled path which obviously lacks the consistency that you can put down to easily test people."
Baber said once the team got back together in the gym, potentially in a couple of weeks, it would have been over three months since they had played in Vancouver.
"Now, the only thing I can compare that to in my lifetime as a rugby player and as a coach is being injured.
"Even in a normal season there's no way you'd have 14 weeks away from your team, your strength and conditioning coaches, your coaches generally, your physios and even when you're injured you don't have that much time away from it so it's a very strange and different environment in which we operate at the moment," Baber said.
Fiji were beaten by New Zealand in the Cup quarter finals in Vancouver. Photo: Mike Lee - KLC fotos for World Rugby
Fiji was languishing in third place in the overall standings, 32 points adrift of the pace-setting All Blacks Sevens, when the Men's World Series was put on pause in March with four rounds still to play.
But Baber, who succeeded Olympic winning coach Ben Ryan in 2017, believed his players could come out this period of uncertainty with a renewed sense of purpose.
"What I do know about Fijians is they excel when there is chaos around them and there is crises at hand and are very good at then keeping that focus and concentration of where they need to be to get to [peak] performance," he said.
"When you get periods like this it brings into real focus what it means to you, your family, your country generally to be blessed in the position that we have done what we've done for so long and not to take it for granted. I think here in Fiji we're very much aware of that and very much aware of what we represent."
Gareth Baber. Photo: PHOTOSPORT
While Fiji have failed to replicate the performances from last season - winning just one of six tournaments before the current campaign was put on hold - Baber believed the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics until next year had given them a chance to take stock.
"The opportunity lies in having to think differently about what you can achieve and how you're going to achieve it, and certainly here in Fiji we do have a little bit of flexibility about what we do," he said.
"We're not quite back to getting the players back in [to training yet] but there's been some good thought processes, some good thinking from the management staff and the leadership group of players alike to think about what we can do and how we can approach things."
Fiji's only tournament victory this season was in Sydney. Photo: Mike Lee - KLC fotos for World Rugby
"What I do know about Fijian players is that if there is an element of de-training, which inevitably happens in a 14 week period, I also know how quickly they can adapt if and when they get back in to the work environment and how quickly they can move on physically.
"I'm looking forward to [it]. It's a different challenge because now I will see them probably at their worst when they come in and from that process there's a huge opportunity to see how far we can push them and convince them and mould those players to understand exactly what their bodies can do."
The London and Paris legs of the Men's World Series remain tentatively pencilled in for September while tournaments in Singapore and Hong Kong had been rescheduled from April to October.
The Women's World Series is also due to host events in Canada, France and Hong Kong later this year while all Olympic events have been postponed until 2021.
Meli Derenalagi will have to wait another 12 months to compete at the Tokyo Olympics. Photo: Mike Lee - KLC fotos for World Rugby
World Rugby said it continued to monitor the global situation regarding the Covid-19 pandemic and no final decisions on the fate of the current season had been made.
"Therefore it would be inappropriate to speculate on hypothetical issues such as promotion or final standings. We are in continual dialogue with the host and participating unions and International Rugby Players and any decisions will always be taken in line with the relevant government and public health authority advice."