PacSports
PacSports
Pacific Netball Lockout
The Netball World Championships won by Australia in Auckland, New Zealand in November, proved a disaster for Pacific netball with the Cook Islands the only team from the three island nations present able to hold their heads high. They were the highest placed island team finishing seventh overall, surprisingly above their more fancied neighbours Fiji and Samoa.
The Cook Islands team coached by former New Zealand Silver Fern rep, Ana No'ovao, beat both Samoa and Fiji during the week-long tournament to record their best result at a World Champs in over a decade. The Cook Islands and Samoa qualified for the quarterfinals of the 16 team competition.
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| Fiji team management, including coach/player Vilimaina Davu (far left) look on. PHOTO: Steven Neville |
Fiji disastrously missed the top eight having but fought back to win their remaining games to finish ninth restoring some pride after coming into the tournament with huge promise following their gold medal win at last September's South Pacific Games in Apia. The Cooks were part of their demise, beating them in the pool games which effectively squeezed Fiji out of the quarters. The team management, particularly coach Vilimaina Davu, came under fire from the media following the loss to the Cooks.
Davu's decision to come out of retirement to play for her country of birth was seen by some in the Fijian media attending the tournament as a move that disturbed the chemistry of the team. Her selections and misinformed comments to media sparked outrage, and on the team's return to Fiji, things went from bad to worse when Fijian netball boss Alice Tabete did not face up to an internal inquiry. A post-World Champs celebration in Suva also reportedly went wrong when one of the Fijian players was allegedly raped.
Samoa started the tournament with promise beating Scotland and former World Champions Trinidad & Tobago. But after their demise to third placed Jamaica in the quarters, the Linda Vagana-coached team fell apart losing first to South Africa, then the Cook Islands in a surprise upset. This saw Samoa drop from 5th to 8th place. The result suggested Samoan netball had gone backwards since finishing 5th at the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games and 6th at the 2003 World Champs in Jamaica.
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| Samoan captain Frances Solia fights for possession against Jamaica at the World Champs quarterfinals. PHOTO: Steven Neville |
Heading into the New Year, Pacific netball bosses now face an even tougher dilemma with the Trans Tasman Cup between Australian and New Zealand netball franchises, set to debut in 2008. Similar in format to the Super 14 rugby competition, the Trans Tasman Cup is netball's first new semi-professional competition as the world game tries to expand its profile. But the benefits of this new competition seem only pointed to Australia and New Zealand, netball's two most powerful nations, with new rules being enforced that will lockout "foreign" players. It effectively means island players who played for either Samoa, Fiji or the Cook Islands will not be eligible to play for the teams as resident players, but only through a one-import rule. As the majority of the island players are based in New Zealand, Vagana, a former Silver Fern herself blasted the new competition saying up to six of her World Champs team will have nowhere to play in 2008. New Zealand teams have already gone outside of the Pacific pool to recruit foreigners to fill their import quota.
"The new rules are selfish and discriminate against many of the players who play for the islands who have lived in New Zealand all their lives, but are now called foreigners," said Vagana.
In other netball news, Rotuman-Fijian Selina Gilsenan has retired from international netball after being part of the Australian team that successfully re-captured the world title after beating New Zealand in the final of the 2007 World Champs.
World First
Hosting an International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) World Cup just two months after the South Pacific Games was a feat in itself, but to bear witness to a new world record was even more special for thousands of Samoans, either glued to their TV sets or watching in the flesh at the Tuana'imato Gymnasium
20 year-old Chinese lifter Liao Hui competing in the 69kg division bettered the old junior men’s mark by 3kg when he clean and jerked 190kg. This is the first time a world record has been set in the Pacific for any sport, according to IWF’s official website. Powerlifting bosses may beg to differ after Samoa's George Lealiifano reportedly broke a world record in the 125kg division at the 2003 South Pacific Games.
“More significantly this achievement ..... highlights Samoa’s weightlifting facility and capacity to host events of international standard. We are setting the benchmark by attracting the highest calibre weightlifters. This will stand Samoa in good stead to host major weightlifting tournaments in the future,” said a delighted President of Samoa Weightlifting, Tuaopepe Wallwork.
Samoa managed to qualify one of its lifters for the Beijing Olympics, Ele Opeloge, who in two years has gone from novice to world class.
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| Samoa Weightlifting Federation president, Tuaopepe Jerry Wallwork, Samoan lifter and Olympic qualifier Ele Opeloge and IWF official Tamas Ajan at the IWF World Cup held in Apia in November 2007 |
While Samoans are beginning to lay claim to holding the balance of power in Pacific weightlifting, that aspiration took a blow when Paul Coffa announced he was moving the Oceania Weightlifting Federation training institute to New Caledonia, the venue for the next Pacific Games in 2011. While Coffa has said the move was planned, reports indicate it was sparked after a war of words with Tuaopepe, which continued through local newspapers even after his departure in November.
Pacific weightlifters have one final chance to qualify for Beijing at the Oceania Championships on 26-29 March 2008 in Auckland, New Zealand.
In other news, Nauru's most famous weightlifting son Marcus Stephen was elected the new president of the Republic of Nauru. At 38, he is among the world's youngest leaders. In a career stretching from 1990 to 2002, Stephen won a silver medal at the 1999 Athens World Champs, set an unofficial world record, and won seven Commonwealth Games gold medals and countless Oceania and South Pacific titles.
Islanders to tour UK
The Pacific Islanders Rugby team will not be touring the Southern Hemisphere, but will venture north again on a tour of the United Kingdom in November. While dates and fixtures have not yet been fixed, the matches will be played inside the test window scheduled by the International Rugby Board (IRB).
Samoa, Fiji and Tonga have reportedly given their blessings for the tour to go ahead. It will be the third Pacific Islanders tour, the first in 2004 to Australia and New Zealand and the 2006 tour to the UK. The Islanders have yet to defeat a test nation. Incumbent coach Pat Lam, who led the islanders in 2006 told PacSports that the tour should take place in the June/July window and not at the end of the year.
"Having the tour in the middle of the year when the Europe is in its offseason is the best time as we can field a stronger team with our best players available. The majority of our players are based up there so it makes sense," he tells PacSports.
Lam, a former Manu Samoa captain who is rapidly moving up New Zealand's coaching ranks after leading Auckland to the national title in 2007, says he would "love" to lead the team again, but hopes whoever is coach will have more time to prepare the team.
Meanwhile, Pacific women's rugby teams will be vying for a place at the 2009 7s World Cup in Hong Kong when the qualifiers are held in Tahiti in April 2008. Rivals Manusina of Samoa and Fijiana of Fiji will be contesting the regional spot. But while a full-strength Manusina is favoured to get in, Fijiana laid down the gauntlet after winning the Pacific 7s in Papua New Guinea last December.
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| Fijiana women's sevens team victorious in Papua New Guinea |
And the IRB has confirmed the draw for the Pacific Rugby Cup 2008. The tournament features two regional teams from each of Fiji, Samoa and Tonga, and will kick-off on April 18.
The competition is part of the IRB's three-year global strategic investment programme aimed at driving the competitiveness of the global game and provides an opportunity for over 180 players in the Islands to be exposed and tested in a high intensity environment.
The 2008 Tournament follows the completion of Fiji’s Colonial Cup, Samoa’s National Provincial Championship and Tonga’s Provincial Championship and provides the coaches of the three national teams with a competitive player development pathway just ahead of the IRB Pacific Nations Cup 2008 which kicks off in May.
“The 2007 IRB Pacific Rugby Cup really helped blood our local players who had little or no previous exposure at Test level. Many of these players took a step up and made the Fiji Test side in the IRB Pacific Nations Cup, and some went all the way and did their country proud at the Rugby World Cup,” says Fiji coach Ilivasi Tabua, who led his side to the quarterfinals.
Upolu Samoa begins its title defense away to 2007 finalists Tau’uta Reds in Nuku’alofa on April 19, while Fiji Warriors face Tautahi Gold in Lautoka and 2006 champions Savai’i Samoa plays Fiji Barbarians in Apia. Four further rounds will follow on consecutive weekends before the top two ranked teams contest the 2007 IRB Pacific Rugby Cup final on May 24.
Four Pacific nations for League World Cup
Samoa will join Pacific neighbors Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Tonga at the 2008 Rugby League World hosted in Australia in October. This is after Toa Samoa easily swept all aside Lebanon, Wales and Scotland to become the last team to qualify at the repechage competition held in the UK last November.
The Toa Samoa side coached by John Ackland was packed with former New Zealand Kiwi internationals which has many in league circles already rating Samoa semi-final certainties. There are also worries back in New Zealand at the inexperience of their own team and Samoa picking up its most experienced former internationals. More players of Samoan heritage born in New Zealand are pledging their allegiance to Samoa ahead of New Zealand with international league rules more relaxed than in rugby union.
The October World Cup in Australia will see the new five domestic player rule enforced. This means each country must have at least five in their squad makeup who based themselves in that country and play in the local competitions. This rule was exercised at the reparcharge qualifiers with Samoa selecting five players who play in the Apia competition.
