Written By : ALLEN LOCKINGTON. Rugby has been played in Fiji for almost one hundred years.
We have been to the World Cup and ruffled some Springbok furs and we have been king of the world in Sevens.
Our boys play top class rugby in France, England, New Zealand, Japan, Australia and South Africa. Yes, Sireli Naqelevuki is once again making waves with the Stormers. At home Naitasiri plays fantastic rugby but discipline lets them down. May I ask why?
Coach Joji Rinakama said players could not be blamed as many are young and this is something that should be accepted. Wowzer, is this statement true?
Is Mr Rinakama serious that his boys are expected to be undisciplined during rugby matches?
Can’t the boys control their temper? Why do they get so angry?
If he says yes, then I rest my peace and say, fair enough because he will understand his boys better but how can we remedy this?
Fijians have very strong traditional ties with each other.
How about taking this to the playground and we remind the players that they are playing their naita or mataqali and to play hard, tackle hard but keep the discipline. Dish out bone crunching tackles, the opponent should understand that it’s rugby, not brawling.
But let’s remind the players that it should be legal. Keep the tackle low.
Fights are a common sight in club rugby, either it’s because of the macho nature of the game or the players just lack what it takes to become great sportsmen.
Seeing our rugby players fight because of a hard tackle makes me wonder where we are in terms of minor union rugby and club rugby.
World rugby has evolved, we no longer see fights, hard bone crushing tackles yes, but no fights.
The players are told not to fight. They have too much too lose.
Can we tell our young men not to fight? Can we ask them what their philosophy of the game is? Can we ask them to bring to the playground the discipline they were taught at home? Many teams pray before and after the game, where does prayer come in during the game.
Lautoka rugby has remedied this side of the game when they formed the Super 4 competition. Games are fantastic free flowing and a joy to watch.
But to Joji Rinakama and the vanua vaka turaga ko Naitasiri team, I’m sure you can do better and soon we can look up to you as the role model in fair play, discipline, and good sportsmanship.
I’m sure you can do it. Let’s leave the old style brutal rugby to history, lets learn and move forward so that we can make the game a business and pleasant to watch.

Fire is becoming a fashion
How many times has Valebasoga sawmill caught fire?
Something is wrong with that place.
The National Fire Authority has been telling us to be careful with fire, electrical apparatus. We should check wiring in our homes, yet we just lost $12 million in another fire.
Fires have been a common thing in Fiji lately. I just hope it doesn’t become a fashion and catch on. (Pun intended)

Employment centre
We have encouraged our children to go to school. Government subsidises some kind of payments that enables parents to send children to school. (I hope.)
We have three universities, hundreds of secondary and primary schools run by Government, the various religious organisations and private institutions. We also have special schools for the handicapped and the blind. Education is the key to success, it has been said, but that’s debatable.
Another thousand citizens will have graduated from USP.
The Fiji National University just churned out round about 2000. We put emphasis on education yet a report says that not all will have a job. Can we remedy this?
On an interesting note, can we gauge the market and then advertise for places in tertiary institutions?
I ask this so that we don’t overpopulate a certain field.
For instance, computer science is popular, I know of many people who have academic qualifications and are unemployed because the market is flooded with them.
We have so many analysts in Fiji who can gauge the market and tell the institutions and schools to prepare students for particular fields.
If we have a flood of applications for a certain field we can tell students to choose another because that particular field is full and jobs will not be guaranteed.
In fact Fiji should set up an employment centre where all companies private and government list vacancies.
Likewise unemployed or people seeking other jobs can send in their resumes.
The employments centre will have all vacancies and a list of all unemployed people in Fiji.
How the centre will operate is obvious. Let’s do it, I know we can.