U18 Women’s Team for the Youth Commonwealth Games

After an outstanding trials last Saturday 20 June, the Fiji Rugby Union has named a 22-member training squad to prepare for the Youth Commonwealth Games to be held early in September in Samoa.  Forty girls turned up to the grounds for the trials, with 15 from Levuka, 12 from the Suva and 13 from the West.

Telecom Fijiana Coach Iliesa Tanivula and Alifereti Mocelutu assisted in selecting the 22. The girls went through a fitness test in their respective centres before coming together for the trials.  National trainer Naca Cawanibuka assisted with the training programme.

All the girls that attended the trials have never played rugby before but they displayed incredible skills.

FRU National Development Manager Sale Sorovaki was impressed with their performance.

“The development team has been going around to various schools conducting skills clinic, and picking the best from each schools for the trials,” Mr Sorovaki said.

“One of the key things in rugby for participants is to enjoy the game which I witnessed on Saturday”.

Mr Sorovaki also said that this is a start of something the development unit wants to do on regular bases.

“We answered the call from some of the girls out there who were interested in playing rugby.  This will also help us in increasing our player base for Fijiana.”

He continued by saying that the invitation of a women’s team to the Youth Commonwealth has helped in creating a pathway to sustain and hopefully materialise into these girls playing for the Fijiana.

“Our biggest goal right now is to qualify to the women’s 15s world cup.”

Development Regional Manager Alifereti Mocelutu has also been visiting schools around the country conducting skills clinics and identifying talents.

“It would have been nice to include more schools,” Mocelutu said. “We picked players from the schools, whereby approval was given by the principals for us to visit”.

The biggest challenge is to get the approval from schools. Hopefully, in the very near future, more schools will participate.

Mocelutu confirmed the current 22 member squad have the size and skills.

“We need to tidy up our set pieces, build up on our speed and work more on our fitness because we are up against teams like Canada and Australia who won the Youth Olympics last year.”

“We also have to work on our individual skills, mini units and units’ skills and we really need the support from the Ministry when the time arises to get the girls together for team training.”

Meanwhile, the FRU Development Unit is organizing a 7s tournament for the secondary schools to be held in Suva on the 21-22 of August. Twenty schools will take part and hopefully more talent will be identified.

U18 Girls 7s TRAINING SQUAD FOR THE YOUTH COMMONWEALTH GAMES 2015

Forwards – 11
Backs – 11