The Ba Provincial Free Bird Institute Secondary School Under -18 rugby side is the team to watch in the 2022 Vodafone Fiji Secondary Schools competi­tion.

According to Fiji Secondary Schools Rugby Union executive Biu Colati the Westerners showed a glimpse of that in last school term’s Fiji Secondary Rugby League com­petition.

Colati said Ba Pro will definitely give the Eastern and Southern schools a good run for their money.

“One of the schools that were re­ally impressive during the Fiji Sec­ondary Schools rugby league com­petition was Ba Provincial,” Colati said.

“They reached the secondary school rugby league U19 finals with 95 per cent of them are U18.

“This means nearly same players playing in rugby league are also in the Deans rugby competition – this definitely with ignite competition.

“I can assure you that this year’s competition will be one of the toughest ones in the history of the game.”

Colati added the Eastern Zone rug­by competition begun last weekend with a lot of promising results.

“The Eastern zone rugby compe­tition started last week, Southern and Western zones kick off this week,” he said.

“Looking at how competition has kicked off, there is a lot of promise in how teams have improved.

“Not many schools have played yet, it is still early to make predic­tions, there will be a lot of surpris­es.”

“I’ve been informed that the num­ber of schools that are joining the boys’ competition has now reached 88, the girls’ have 77 teams so far.

“It looks really bright with a lot of excitement; this could be the result of the clear pathway created by the Fiji Rugby Union.

“Schools and students are well versed making them eager to follow and try to fit in that pathway.”

Around 8840 players from 89 schools will be participating this year with 182 boys’ teams and 77 girls’ teams from the Under 14 to Under 19 grades.

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