Last weekend Team Fiji Boxing hosted its first Amateur International Tournament after coming back from a four-year ban in front of a packed and vocal crowd at the National Fitness Centre in Suva.

Team Fiji hosted Team Nauru to six bouts, five of them being International and one being local.

It was a nerve-wracking evening for all, as it would be the first time to test our young boxers to see whether we had the fitness, skill level and experience to deal with a Nauru team that boasted Decorated Amateur Boxers that were Gold and Silver medalists in the region.

To add to this majority of the Nauru team regularly had the opportunity to train and box in Brisbane, which made this task to win at home even more difficult.

We should not have worried to much as Team Fiji Boxing made a clean sweep of winning six out of the six of its bouts.

This was no mean feat against an experienced team like Nauru, but the boys had trained diligently and with a vast improvement in their skill level which carried through into their bouts.

Fighter of the night was Team Fiji Boxing middleweight Jone Mau, who is in the Police Force and has been a champion in the security forces on more than one occasion.

His bout was even more pleasing as his Nauruan opponent took the fight to him from the start and after managing to cover up and deflect most of the opponents blows, Jone took over in the second round and punished his opponent forcing a knock out stoppage by the referee.

Most exciting fight of the night was Team Fiji Boxing Light Heavyweight Cena Ruata, who is a student at the Fiji National University who traded blows from the start with his experienced Nauruan opponent, but took over the fight in the second round with his heavy and more accurate blows causing a stoppage by the referee for a technical knock out.

Toughest fight of the night was for Team Fiji Boxing Welterweight Winston Hill who is a personnel trainer at Suva Boxing and Fitness Centre in Brown Street, his opponent was a Silver Medalist at the Pacific Games and a former Gold medalist at the Youth Games and former Olympian for his Country.

This fight was back and forth but Winston had the extra gear to get the win after a grueling and tough three-round battle, which had the crowd on their feet.

Most significant win of the night was for Team Fiji Boxing Light Welterweight Vilimoni Drotini who outpointed Nauruan Oceania Gold medalist in the same weight class.

This was on paper a very difficult fight to win but with his calm and calculated fight plan Drotini made the fight look easy.

This was done through his discipline and self belief that the coaches had installed in him.

Finally, the classiest fight of the night went to Team Fiji Boxing Pauliasi Ratu Jr who put on a master class against an opponent who looked bigger and stronger than him in the ring, but Pauliasi boxed from a distance and making his opponent miss constantly and easily outpointing him with ring generalship.

Well, there you have it. A wonderful night for Team Fiji Boxing where the fights were won, not in the ring, but from the hours and hours of dedicated Strength and Conditioning classes the hard 10 to 15 kilometres daily runs and the technical boxing and hard open sparring.

Well done boys, for a team that only came together about two months ago, you are certainly winning the hearts of all Fijians country wide.

– The writer is a Fiji Sun columnist.

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