Sevens: Valence's appetite is a sevens inspiration

MELBOURNE - You could say that sevens supremo Amasio Valence and coach Gordon Tietjens have a dietary relationship: Valence eats and Tietjens runs it off him.

After the euphoria of the New Zealand sevens team's third straight Commonwealth Games triumph, Valence, still only 26, became one of the few New Zealand athletes to win three gold medals in successive Games and was instantly feted as one of the game's greatest players. He also went into sevens history as its hungriest player. Literally.

"Even the night before the finals, he wanted to have a big curry or something," said Tietjens, shaking his head in mock disbelief after the historic 29-21 victory over England.

Valence's weight problems - if we can call them that - have become the stuff of legend and humour within the sevens camp.

"We weigh him every morning and if he is over 90kg, he gets some very hard work. He is always looking to eat and I believe he is not the same player if he is over 90kg so we work it off him," said Tietjens.

It is clear that the issue has caused coach and player to be at odds occasionally. "He might come up and thank me one day," said Tietjens. "We could not have won the gold without him. He is the Serevi of New Zealand sevens at his fittest and his best. It was a big call I made."

He was referring to Valence's original omission from the team. A knee injury was quoted and Tietjens paid tribute to Valence, his words a farewell to a player whose sevens career appeared to have ended with injury.

But, when All Black Doug Howlett was injured out of the side, the knee injury appeared to have gone and Valence was restored.

Valence was slightly sheepish when asked what the problem was with his original selection. "Oh, it wasn't the coach's fault," he said. "He played it straight. I had a fitness test and he rang me and told me I wasn't up to it, fitness-wise. He told me what I had to do - I was 95kg. I kept training but thought I wasn't going."

Valence said he had not been eating carbohydrates so he could lose weight. Asked why, he said: "I guess it's because the coach didn't want me playing with all this weight hanging off my backside."

However, the Fijian-born Valence played his tournament as he has always done - busily, at the heart of the action.

"Personally, I played this tournament for him," said captain Tafai Ioasa, "as it is his last. I had a joke with him about it but I really wanted to send him off on a winning note."

While he is often called the Kiwi Waisale Serevi, a title which suggests he could not surpass the master, Valence clearly outpointed Fiji's Serevi and every other playmaker in this tournament. If he was overweight, the Aussies would hate to see him when he's not - he scored perhaps the best New Zealand try of the tournament after a sweeping move to kill off the Australian challenge, earning a 21-5 lead they could not haul back.

"You have to be specially conditioned to play sevens," said Tietjens. "We have proved it over and over again. I don't think a lot of people realise just how much work these guys do to play this game and they don't get enough recognition for it."

Both Valence and Tietjens counted the Melbourne medal as the most satisfying of the three Commonwealth golds. "I personally wondered whether we had the ammunition to do it this time," said Tietjens, "especially when I saw the speed Australia and England had.

"You can't coach passion and that's what we had."

Valence said: "It was just awesome. We made history for ourselves, didn't we?"

But he will not play for New Zealand again. "I've done just about everything in sevens. Now it is time to move on," said Valence who has a two-year contract to play in Japan.

- HERALD ON SUNDAY