Australia’s roll-up-your-sleeves rugby sevens team are making a habit of achieving firsts.
Beating Fiji in an Olympics is the next one on their bucket list, something 16 other teams have attempted to do since the sport debuted at Rio’s 2016 Games.
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The Pacific neighbours will meet in Saturday’s (Sunday 1200 AEST) semi-final at Stade de France.
The hosts face South Africa for the other spot in the gold medal game later that day.
Bookies have John Manenti’s men as $7 outsiders to topple the two-time defender champions, who own both of Fiji’s only two Olympic gold medals and are yet to lose a single game in three campaigns.
There was a national holiday declared after they won in Rio.
“We were over there (in Fiji) for four games and they touched us up in all four of them,” Manenti said of their recent unofficial series.
“Nobody else in the world probably thinks we can do it and they literally play for the nation.
“But we have a real belief and haven’t played anywhere near where we can play (during the Paris campaign).”
Since Manenti took over after the Tokyo Games the side have won a world series title, broken a 34-year drought to win in Hong Kong and automatically qualified for the Olympics for the first time.
This is also their first Olympic semi-final.
“We’ve done a few things along the way we’ve never done before and have a few more to do yet before the week’s out,” he said.
“We’ve had a real roll-your-sleeves up mentality.
“We’re not all Ferraris … we’ve got a couple there, but also lots of solid workers.”
Henry Hutchison is one of the latter, the three-time Olympian debuting in 2015.
“It’s been my life and my work for 10 years and it means a lot to me this jersey,” he told AAP.
“Fiji are pretty hot, but we’re a hard-working team and that’s our point of difference so we’ll stick to the script and do our best.”
Fiji were clearly the best side in the pool stages but needed some fortune to survive a 19-15 quarter-final defeat of Ireland.
“Records are not important to us; this record will not matter if we lose the next game,” coach Osea Kolinisau said.
“We play every game as a final at the Olympics … we want to keep that legacy alive.”
